


Gallows Bird Roulette

by Lee_of_io



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst interspersed with levity, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Fluff, Graphic Description, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Non-consensual surgery, Other, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Sickfic, Torture, Vomiting, Whump, emotional support symbiote
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2019-11-01 03:32:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17859449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lee_of_io/pseuds/Lee_of_io
Summary: Since meeting Venom, Eddie’s relationship with mortality has been tenuous at best.  Others begin to notice.





	1. Headshot

Between 11:39 and 11:41 pm on a Thursday night Dan’s phone buzzed 5 times in quick succession:

 

_Eddie: Hey Dan! I’ve got an emergency here_

_Eddie: Are you at home? The hospital?_

_Eddie: Can I come to you now?_

_Eddie: Maybe not an emergency emergency. But still bad_

_Eddie: I really need you to take a look at something_

 

* * *

 (Earlier)

 

The guttural growl shudders through Eddie’s frame is audible enough that the woman walking past him startles and hurries past at a slightly more accelerated clip. He sighs in sympathy, watching his breath cloud in the air in front of him.

 

His other is getting more and more frustrated and, though he’s glad there has been a significant decrease in petty criminals out harassing the city tonight, he can’t help but hope for some mugger or would-be murderer to show up soon so that the ache of hunger the Venom couldn’t help projecting through their shared senses would be alleviated. That, plus he felt like he was freezing his balls off out here on the streets.

 

“Maybe it’s too cold for bad guys tonight, babe.”

 

**_Hungry, Eddie. It’s our night to hunt._ **

 

“I know, I’m just saying if anyone was contemplating indulging in a little illegal activity tonight, the weather probably drove them indoors. And, I don’t know, _maybe_ we should follow their example. I feel like I’m going to get frostbitten out here pretty soon.”

 

**_The hunt for evil does not stop for snow nor rain nor—_ **

 

“Yeah, I’m going to stop you right there. We’re not postal workers.”

 

**_We will deliver the guilty to our maw._ **

 

“Please stop.”

 

**_We will envelope them with our stomach._ **

 

“Gross. We’re stopping now. That one wasn’t even a real pun. You’ve had your pun privileges revoked.”

 

**_At this rate, we’ll have no material ready for open mic night._ **

 

“And the world will be better off because of that.”

 

**_Good partners are supposed to be supportive in each other’s passions, Eddie._ **

 

“Oh yeah, and where did you get that kernel of wisdom from, one of the fortune cookies from last night? Actually, you know what, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know what you’ve been looking up online at night.”

 

Smug satisfaction slips discreetly through their shared synapses, pushing the vague impression of something pornographic into his thoughts.

 

**_That’s just a taste of what we look up at night._ **

 

And Jesus if the rolling purr of those words didn’t feel like they were just hummed right into his ear. Well, at least he isn’t feeling quite so cold anymore.

 

“Why are you looking up that stuff when you’ve got the real thing right here?” He puts on a mock pout.

 

**_Taking notes._ **

 

“Hmm, is there a quiz at the end?”

 

 ** _Yes, a final exam._** At this Venom sends him the mental impression of tendrils sensuously caressing down past the dip of his navel leaving a flutter of anticipation in his gut just before withdrawing.

 

He exhales shakily. Great, now he’s freezing and horny.

 

“Tease,” he mumbles with feigned exasperation, despite the smile at the edge of his lips. “You better not have downloaded any viruses onto my computer.”

 

They really needed to wrap this shit up and get back home. The thought of the nice warm bed waiting for the two of them couldn’t have been a sharper contrast to the gritty street they were stalking along.

 

Just at that moment, he notices a figure up ahead jogging very deliberately toward him. Venom coils with suspicion, bubbling just beneath the surface of Eddie’s skin, ready to take form if need be.

 

“Hold up, love.” Eddie does his best to assure that agitated Symbiote. Maybe this guy just needed some help?

 

“Hey,” the guy calls out, slowing his stride as he gets close. “Hey man, I thought I recognized you. You’re Eddie Brock, right? I’m a huge fan.”

 

Eddie relaxes a fraction; the guy seems sincere enough and looks genuinely excited. While not exactly famous by any means, Eddie is at this point use to the occasional random person stopping him on the street or in the store and expressing excitement over making his acquaintance, if however brief. Usually for the benefit of bragging that they had met someone they knew from TV, but hey, Eddie wasn’t complaining.

 

It was nice to know that there were still people who were still excited to meet him after the rough nose-dive his reputation took from the whole Life Foundation escapade.

 

“Oh, hey,” he’s a little slow on the uptake, not really sure how the guy recognized him from a distance, then again there was enough ambient light from shops and intersections around to make a soft glow pocket between the dark back-alleys.

 

Perhaps sensing his unease, the stranger backed up a little. “Shit, I’m sorry man. I shouldn’t have just come up to you out of nowhere like that.” The guy looks a little dejected now as he backs off.

 

“No, no, it’s cool,” Eddie rushes to reassure the guy. _God_ , he thinks, kicking himself mentally, _can I not make an ass out of myself for once_. He used to be good at this, just turning on the confidence and talking to people like, what happened?

 

**_Don’t like him, Eddie. Let’s eat him._ **

 

“No!”

 

The guy starts a little at his sudden outburst.

 

“Hey, no, sorry about that. It’s totally cool. It’s just been a long day, you know?” Eddie can feel Venom performing the mental equivalent of an eye-roll at his not so smooth attempts to salvage the situation. He had to lose this guy quick before his other lost their patience and decided to make a meal out of the interaction. “Something I can do for you?”

 

“Oh uh, yeah I was wondering if I could get your autograph? It’s cheesy, I know, but I’d be kicking myself forever if I passed up the chance to at least ask.”

 

This, at least, Eddie was confident he could screw up. If one little signature was all the guy was stopping him for, why not? “No problem, man.”

 

“Cool, cool. I have a receipt and a pen, one sec.” He guy fishes out a crumpled bit of paper and hastily tries to flatten it out before handing it off to Eddie before working around in his jacket pockets for a pen.

 

Eddie’s trying his best to remain the picture of civility but the more the guy fumbles the more he can feel Venom growing restless. It only grows worse when the guy finds the pen and fumbles it onto the ground with a curse.

 

“It’s no problem,” Eddie stoops down and hastily collects the pen as it rolls in the direction of a side alley. “Got it.”

 

**_Eddie—_ **

 

As he straightens up, Eddie has only a fraction of a second to registers the situation before the barrel of a gun makes impact with his head and fires point blank.

* * *

 

  _The dark flees with a sickening lurch, slugging off of him with all the resistance of tree sap._

_His limbs feel numb._

_More than numb, like his blood is being siphoned off through his fingertips._

_His toes are so cold._

_He can’t tell if he’s actively breathing or not._

**_Hold on, Eddie._ **

_The murky shapes before his eyes dim before they disappear altogether; swallowed up by a welcome void._

* * *

 

The door swings inward before he can knock; he can just make out the fleeting look of panic on Dan’s face before the man quickly ushers him inside.

 

He is guided into a chair and is promptly subjected to a litany of questions as his head is carefully examined, tilted to and fro by gentle latex wrapped hands.

 

“I’m fine, Dan. Really.”

 

“If you were truly fine, you wouldn’t have felt the need to stop by. Not that I’m trying to deter you, Eddie. I’m glad you trust my medical expertise when it comes to something so serious. It’s just very fortunate that Anne’s out of town right now. If you could follow my finger with just your eyes, please?”

 

**We are sorry to disturb your evening, Dan. Eddie insisted seeing you even though we are both perfectly health once more.**

 

More than Dan’s silent confirmation that nothing appeared amiss, the return of Venom’s casual snark reassured Eddie that he was going to be alright.

 

“Just wanted a professional’s second opinion, love. Once you earn that medical license, I won’t dare question your handy work again.” With this he makes a vague gesture to his gore incrusted left temple, earning a huff from the Symbiote who is looped around the length of his right leg.

 

The reassuring weight of his other atop his skin grounds him in the moment. Despite insisting that he’s fine, he still feels out of sorts, as if the familiar surroundings of the Weying/Lewis household were tilting slightly to the side, like the deck of a ship. He is made hyper-aware of the faint trembling of his fingers as they lay prone across the tops of his thighs.

 

He is drawn mercifully from his fixation on the pounding of his pulse by Dan asking, “So what exactly happened? Other than the obvious, of course.”

 

“Some guy stopped me on the street. Got me talking. Pretended like he was a fan and wanted an autograph. Then,” and here Eddie does a half-hearted mime of a finger-gun firing at his head.

 

**We were able to stop the bullet, but not before some damage was done to the frontal lobe.**

 

Venom slumps dejectedly further down his leg after relaying this bit of info to Dan. Eddie is quick to give the withdrawing gooey mass a reassuring squeeze before the Symbiote beat a dismal retreat back into his body.

 

“None of that, V. You saved my life. Tonight is just the latest in a long list of instances in which I could have bit the dust without you around. Honestly, I’m not sure how I’ve survived up till this point.”

 

“Eddie, as your doctor and your friend, I would like to express how terrifyingly destructive your apathy toward your own wellbeing is. That being said, Venom, I wouldn’t worry too much. I think you did an excellent job patch Eddie up as it were.” At this, Dan tilts Eddie’s head to the side and, to the best of his abilities, begins to clear away some of the blood caked to his skin.

 

There is a calm quite shared between all three, before Eddie breaks it, of course.

 

“V, I could probably guess, but what happened after I went dark?”

 

**Had to get the bullet out of your brain as quickly as possible. We ejected it with such force that it struck our assailant and killed him. Wonderfully ironic. After making sure you were stable, we ate him.**

 

Eddie notices that Dan looks a little green after this stark recounting of events, but doesn’t comment on the pair’s semi-cannibalistic diet, choosing instead to ask Eddie, “How are you holding up?”

 

“Well, I feel a little strange, but not as bad as a while ago.”

 

“Anything specific that seems to be amiss?”

 

“I feel like I have blood spilling down that back of my eyeballs.”

 

 **You don’t.** Venom reassures with the tone of someone who went and double-checked, just to be sure.

 

“Thanks, babe.  Probably just finally coming down from an adrenaline rush then.”

 

“You should probably stay that night.”

 

“I didn’t want to impose. I just wanted to check in and confirm that nothing in my head got too scrambled. Don’t want to wake up in the morning and find out the hard way that I forgot how to do math, or something like that.”

 

**You never knew how to do math.**

 

“Smartass.”

 

**One of us has to be.**

 

“You know, Dan, come to think of it there's this really annoying voice that’s yakking away in my head all the time. Got anything that can fix that?”

 

“Sorry, Eddie. That’s not my area of expertise. I do know of a few good, discreet, relationship counselors I could get you in contact with, after Anne has a talk with them and a few NDA’s are signed first, of course.” That said, Dan gives the pair their privacy but tactfully retreating to go clean up.

 

Venom slips into his leg only to re-emerge seconds later from his right shoulder. A web of tendrils coalesce into a loose impression of a blanket draped over his form. Their serpentine head sprouts from the mass and begins to clean away some of the more stubborn clots of blood from Eddie’s brow with precision kitten licks. Not that long ago Eddie would have shuddered at the act, but now he recognized as an act of Venom silently showing care for him, as well as reassuring themself of their host’s wellbeing.

 

“On second thought,” Eddie muses softly as the ache in his nerves abates, “I think I kinda like that second voice in my head.”

 

Venom hums with agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a penchant for writing a lot of (sometimes graphic) hurt/comfort content. Venom makes that a little challenging because logically the Symbiote can heal Eddie just as quickly as Eddie can get into trouble. Then I figured I've been approaching this from the wrong angle. So this is going to be a series of shorts basically centering around the various brushes with death and injury Eddie and Venom face, what with being vigilantes and Eddie's fondness for antagonizing powerful enemies, and how they deal with the consequences. 
> 
> These shorts won't necessarily be connected and I'm not going to worry about meeting a particular word count with these chapters. This is kind of experimental, but I'm excited to see where this goes. I have some ideas lined up for these first few chapters, but if anyone wants to make a suggestion, just let me know, and I'll consider working it in.
> 
> Thanks everyone!


	2. Impalement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the rating change and the additional tags.

Derelict buildings were hotbeds of criminal activity. This, Eddie, knew well; in his years of investigative journalism, many discreet pursuits would end up with sensitive intel or illegal materials exchanged within the walls of abandoned warehouses or factories.

 

Now, wrapped up in the form of his alien other, in the shadows, clinging upside down from the damp concrete ceiling, and about to deliver a sizable helping of vigilante justice upon a number of heavily armed gang members who were beating and interrogating a man, the whole set up felt deliciously cartoony.

 

For the time being, they hung back, as it seemed the poor bastard was now eagerly answering the queries being posed without the need for physical persuasion. From what little context they could pick up through their enhanced hearing, it sounded like the guy sniveling for mercy (aptly called Murphy, if his bad luck was anything to go on) had been covering up for a laundering side operation within the gang that was skimming profits from the leader’s pocket. If the accusations being thrown around were anything to go by, he’d also been collecting a tidy little sum for his silence on the matter. It seems the whole scheme had gotten a little too greedy.

 

Murphy was singing like a bird, dropping a hand full of names of other gang members who were allegedly also involved. This didn’t satisfy the muscled interrogators for long, however; as soon as they asked where the money ended, Murphy hesitated and seemed unable to provide a satisfying answer.

 

**_Why are we wasting our time listening when we could be eating, Eddie?_ **

 

Trust Venom to look at the situation with unshakable pragmatism.

 

_Sometimes, it’s better to gather a little information rather than simply kill our way through obstacles, love._

**_Why let a good meal go? We’re hungry now._ **

****

_We’re not exactly subtle when we eat, people are catching on to us._ _If we take out these thugs someone’s going to notice, and given we don’t know who their boss is, we’re just painting a big target on our back._

It was an inescapable fact of ‘crime-fighting’, as it were, that logistically they couldn’t prevent every criminal they faced off against from escaping. Often, if innocent lives were in danger, securing their safety took priority over the satisfaction of apprehending the guilty. This led to word spreading quickly through the criminal underbelly of the city that a giant man-eating monster was culling their numbers.

 

Now they had to be more careful than ever. There was no way of knowing if the adversaries they pursued came equipped with a contingency plan for their arrival. If Venom’s weaknesses to certain sound frequencies and fire ever became common knowledge, any fight they engage in could easily flip on a dime, putting them in at a very dangerous disadvantage.

 

Luckily, that wasn’t the case at the moment. As far as they could tell, the secret Venom’s weaknesses died with the disbanding of the Life Foundation. Anyone who had worked on the Symbiote project and survived had wisely gone deep into hiding. Now they just had to make sure no one else lived to discover them again. That, and Eddie’s identity as the mundane half of the superhuman being must be concealed to all but their most trusted friends.  

 

It wasn’t smart to pick fights where there were none. There were no innocents here, and taking advantage of a little dissension in the ranks to get the drop on a couple gang members (just because they were feeling a little peckish) seemed like a needless risk.

 

_Let’s go, V. Let them sort themselves out. This isn’t worth our time or energy._

**_They deal in death, Eddie._ **

****

_That something we’ll just have to confront them about another day. Right now, this is going nowhere._

****

**_Think of this as a preemptive measure. We will be saving innocent lives before they are ruined._ **

 

Before Eddie could rebuttal further, the decision to make a quiet retreat was taken from him as a bit of the concrete plaster they griped, cracked and dislodged, falling to the floor below to clatter noisily just feet from the group of men.

 

“The fuck was that! Who’s there?”

 

And just like that, a cluster of flashlight beams take flight up the walls until they find Venom’s grinning visage and lashing tongue greeting them upside down from between the rotting scaffolding; jagged sickle eyes reflecting back the light with a tapetum lucidum glow.

 

With a scream of ‘ _Jesus Christ!’_ the gunfire tattoos the little cover between them and the open air of the warehouse. Eddie instinctively flinches back and trust Venom to get maneuver them out of this. At this point, if someone was going to be losing their head tonight, it might as well be one of the thugs on the floor below.

 

Venom sprints across the ceiling, wrenching scaffolding for supports and sending the structures hurtling to the ground, bowling over several of their trigger-happy attackers. The structure around them groans in protest as water-weathered supports are weakened further as rounds of ammunition eating away at their stability. Debris rain down around them, creating a dust cover that disorients the gunmen and temporarily conceals Venom’s advancing descent.

 

They slink down the side of one wall, jumping the last couple of yards to impact directly in front of one gang member. The man continued to shoot at them (with no obvious effect), rapid-fire, with a determination that denoted an overestimation of his own abilities in the face of this unknown apex predator. Eddie could feel the amused satisfaction this brought Venom as their jaws unhinged to an unearthly angle and snaps like a bear trap down over the terminally horrified visage of the poor sod.

 

More cries of terror from the remaining men followed in the wake of this, and in response, the gunfire picked up in tempo.

 

_Jesus, how much ammo did they bring to this little party? Did they really think they were going to need all that to intimidate some answers out of one guy?_

 

Venom is too preoccupied with the act of leaping atop a fleeing target to offer any commentary. Eddie cringes back, withdrawing his senses momentarily as the Symbiote snaps down on the guy’s arm, swallowing the limb with the gun still death-gripped in the hand.

 

_That better not give us indigestion later. And stop playing with your food!_

 

 **Don’t worry, Eddie.** The Symbiote addresses their internal host, but their grinning maw projects the words to the panic-stricken man they loom over. **We are only allowing his brain to marinate in serotonin and adrenaline before we indulge.**

 

That said, the Symbiote, in an almost loving manner as one would while enjoying a first bite of a gourmet meal, engulfs the man down to the trunk of the neck and _crunches_.

 

 _Good God,_ no matter how often Eddie was exposed to his other’s dietary preferences, the eating of live meat, let alone that of _humans_ , would never fail to unsettle him to his core.

 

During this time, the majority of the remaining gang members gave up on shooting Venom, deciding instead to advantage of the distraction their former ally provided to escape. All, that is, except for Murphy.

 

Venom turns to the man with exaggerated methodical slowness, really laying it on thick the whole big scary monster gag. Eddie makes sure to project his exasperation through their bond. This elicits a chuckle from Venom, but the noise that reverberates from between their teeth sounds more like the muffled rattle of scraping metal. Murphy, understandable, looks like he’s about to piss his pants. It appeared that whatever beating the other gang members had exacted on him left him with a pronounced limp, and shot nerves left him all but a gibbering mess.

 

In his attempted retreat he trips and falls over an assault rifle, presumably left behind by one of his former cohorts in the mad dash to escape. Murphy, in a last-ditch desperation, levels the rifle at Venom’s stalking form and opens fire.

 

Of course, to Venom this serves as little more than an annoyance and hardly an impediment to their intentions. Or, that would have been the case if Murphy’s ever-increasing panic hadn’t prompted the man to clench his eyes shut and lay on the trigger. The resulting wild spray of high caliber bullets went all over the place, tearing up the walls, chewing up aged support columns, and pockmarking the ceiling further. An ever-increasing hail of rubble gave Venom pause.

 

**Quite shooting, you dumbass! The building—**

 

But the warning comes too little too late (not that Murphy was inclined to listen to the monster that had unapologetically dined on the cranium of another man not ten feet away, and intended to do the same to him), as the screech of grinding metal bespoke the imminent disaster.

 

The beginning with the center of the ceiling, the building folded in on itself and collapsed straight down on top of their heads.

 

Even with Venom acting as a protective exoskeleton, shielding their fragile host from the worst of the plummeting wreckage, something strikes them such volatile force that the impact knocks Eddie cold.

* * *

 

**_Eddie, wake up! Please wake up! Need you! Eddie!_ **

 

The low groan pushes past his lips is the only way he can respond. The frantic repetition of words cuts off in the wake of his muffled noises.

 

**_Awake, Eddie?_ **

 

_Here, love. What did I miss?_

 

He tries for casual humor but falls short as the tiny shifts of his waking body _tug_ on something that sense ripples of pain shooting through his torso.

 

“Fuuuckk!”

 

**_Don’t move, Eddie. We shouldn’t move. Cannot move!_ **

 

 _Is it shouldn’t or can’t?_ It isn’t really a question. If something has Venom this freaked out there was no easy fix for this one. Even the small act of vocalizing his pain aloud sent throbbing agony through him, nearly arresting the breath on his lips.

 

**_We have been impaled through the thoracic cavity by a steel rod._ **

 

 _Oh fuck._ Eddie could feel a numbness eating away at his senses. He swallows convulsively to keep the rush of saliva in his mouth from the threat of turning into the urge to vomit. _Why can’t we take the rod out, V?_ He dreads the answer.

 

**_The rod is all that is keeping back tons of concrete and steel from crushing us completely._ **

 

_So we’re pinned like a butterfly._

 

 ** _More like meat on a skewer, but yes._** Venom pauses, seemingly taken aback by their own shaky bid to lighten the circumstances. **_Missed you, Eddie. Didn’t know if you would wake._**

 

He still doesn’t feel awake. There is an obscure quality to his thoughts, as if he’s trying to paddle a boat through an inch of water. Perhaps Venom was hampering the pain signals in his brain, like a built-in morphine drip.

 

**_Not doing this, Eddie. You’re going into shock._ **

 

Was he? That might explain why couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He could feel sweat percolating up through his skin but, at the same time, he felt cold. Very cold.

 

_V? Wha—?_

 

**_Breathe. You need to stay conscious. Love you. Need you to stay here, Eddie._ **

 

 _V, can you- can you show me?_ He worries for a moment that his request is too vague, but sharing a mind for as many months as they have, there were few moments of ambiguity between them anymore.

 

Regardless, Venom hesitates; clearly worried that complying will set Eddie off further down a spiral. Evidently, the necessity for their human half the fully understand what it is they were dealing with weighs out.

 

With that in mind, Venom takes command of Eddie’s senses and directs his vision through their own. The Symbiote’s body was one in constant flux. There were no specialized cells in their mass that were incapable of doing what any other could. As such, while what Eddie traditionally thought of as Venom’s ‘head’ remained firmly enclosed around that of their host’s, a second separate aspect, complete with a pair of crescent eyes, was able to form out of the base of there neck. Venom diverted Eddie’s sight through this second set of eyes and together they peered down through the dusty air at their butchered upper back.

 

There, jutting up through the meat of his back, just to the left and above the abdomen. The view, thankfully, isn’t a complete one, as ropes of Venoms mass gripped the entry point and on to about an inch up the shaft. The only clue to the violence of the impalement was the splatter of blood that coated the surrounding building debris.

 

It takes Eddie a few moments to compose himself, blinking back tunneling vision and a rushing in his ears before he can continue. _What’s the damage?_

 

**_The rod has punctured between the tenth and eleventh ribs. Both are fractured. The diaphragm and spleen are damaged. The inferior lobe of our left lung was pierced but we were able to heal it and prevent collapse before complications could occur. Internal bleeding—_ **

****

_Could you please translate that into layman's terms for me?_

****

**_You and I would have died twenty minutes ago if we hadn’t eaten the little that we had tonight. Wouldn’t have the energy to stabilize our current condition otherwise._ **

 

With a mental nudge, Venom relinquishes Eddie’s vision. Both host and Symbiote are silent as the implications of all that was said and unsaid filter between them. Just thinking about the metal lodged in his gut; festering, made his head swim with dizziness.

 

He shudders involuntarily, only to be wracked with instantaneous pain that pulls at the threads of his consciousness. Bright dots dance before his clenched eyes and the pull of darkness seethes up through his senses before he can stave it off.

* * *

 

The next time he wakes, it feels as though it takes a physical toil to drag himself back to awareness.

 

Venom is there, just at the peripheral of his consciousness, sick with anxiety. **_Eddie? Please stay with me, can’t do this alone. Couldn’t tell if you were coming back or slipping further. Eddie? Say something, please._**

 

 _Here._ Even just responding mentally cost him undue exhaustion.

 

The urge to vomit rushes through him suddenly. Venom withdraws from his head and helps minimize his convulsing as he gags. What splatters on the ground inches from his face is red and viscous. Swiping of his tongue across his teeth reveals the sharp tang of iron.

 

As he takes a moment to reorient his reeling stomach he takes in their surroundings. The only light visible from their angle is too weak and diffused to be able to identify a source. Given that they had begun their investigation of the screams coming from the abandoned building sometime after 4 am, it was safe to guess that daybreak was approaching.

 

_How long have we been here, V?_

 

**_Don’t know. Lost track after you went under the second time. Can’t go much longer, Eddie._ **

 

The grim certainty with which Venom said this told Eddie all he had to know of the gravity of their situation.

 

_What do you propose, love?_

 

**_Can’t lift the wreckage that the rod is holding back; can’t leverage the weight from this angle nor do we have the strength right now. Can’t pull the rod up and slip under; it is embedded into the concrete below us up to a foot by our estimation._ **

 

Eddie can feel Venom’s trepidation as they hesitate to reach the conclusion of their assessment.

 

_What do we have to do?_

**_None of the load is bearing directly down on us. There is rubble pinning our legs, but it is not wedged against a greater weight. If we can get free of the rod, we can disengage our limbs from the wreckage without fear of causing further collapse._ **

****

_Meaning?_

****

**_We will have to escape the rod from the side._ **

 

At first, it doesn’t register to Eddie what this means, but as a muscle in his diaphragm involuntarily spasms and sends white-hot pangs of torment blistering through his side, he gets it.

 

_Oh fuck._

 

**_We will have to widen the wound, incrementally, until we can maneuver away from it. Horizontally._ **

 

_You want to pull me off of this thing by cutting it an exit path through the side of my body?_

 

He can tell he’s hyperventilating but he can’t stop. This was too much. His overtaxed senses began to swim in and out of focus once more. A sob cuts through his throat like a knife, choking him and leaving him feeling raw and so utterly _helpless._

 

**_Eddie, Eddie please— will be here for you! We will escape this together! Please, Eddie, breathe. Don’t— don’t leave me again!_ **

 

And _oh god_ , this was too much. Too fucking much. But the sound of Venom’s own panic wrenched him from his own spiraling terror enough to see that there was no other option.

 

If they stayed where they were, Venom’s ability to continuously heal Eddie’s body would run out along with their waning strength. They would die beneath the rubble of an abandoned building, and in all likelihood, would never be found. If they went through with Venom’s plan and botched it, well it would also mean death. But with the second scenario, there was the slightest fraction of a chance they might survive.

 

And honestly, there was no one in the world Eddie trusted more than Venom.

 

_Ok._

**_Yes, Eddie? We will try?_ **

_Yeah, let’s try._

 

Venom doesn’t give Eddie time to rethink his decision; instead, they compress themself further around their host’s limbs, securing him from thrashing and possibly causing any more harm. His anxiety spikes as pressure is exerted around the site of the wound. The only warning he gets is an acute pain in his side, before the pulling starts.

 

He _wails_ with agony.

 

“ _Fuuuuckk_ — V, no! I can’t do this! Stop stop please _stopstopstop oh god!_ ”

 

It feels like his very muscles and organs are being sadistically _unzipped_ layer by layer. Anguish scours through his veins like sulfuric acid.

 

His litany of pleads and curses are abruptly cut off by more blood hacking up and out of his throat. The fresh taste of death in his mouth sparks an animalistic horror through him.

 

“ _Nonono,_ please! I’m dying! You’re fucking _killing me!_ Stop _, please!_ ”

 

Venom is silent. A tiny logical voice from the back of his mind logically points out that the Symbiote was likely not responding so as to not lose their own nerve and given in to Eddie’s own infectious despair. The larger, overwhelming majority of Eddie’s brain shut this rational dissenter down, burring the voice under howls of pain. It no longer felt like _their_ body, _their_ mind; it was only him, alone and abandon to this torture.

 

**_Forgive us, Eddie._ **

 

He was so startled by the voice of his other that he had no time to comprehend the words.

 

His ribs _snap_ out of the way of the maneuvering rod.

 

The noise that issues from his mouth is an animal keen of misery.

 

The darkness is edging in again, but this time he can feel Venom groping desperately through his head. They must find whatever it is they were searching for because with what feels like a physical _tweak,_ hyper-awareness floods his synapses into nauseating overdrive.

 

**_Can’t sleep, Eddie. Need you here._ **

 

“Please hurry, Venom! Please!” He can feel the rod tugging against the last couple of inches of flesh. The blood the smears the concrete beneath them showcases the sideways drag of their form across the ground in macabre detail.

 

With a savage roar, Venom rips them free of the steel rod; a splatter of gore left in its wake.

 

**_Got you, Eddie. Here now. Won’t leave you._ **

 

The pain hasn’t stopped by any means, but his ability to vocalize it is sucked dry. Venom has to reform over his head to draw his line of sight away from the tiny bits of viscera drying on the dusty floor. He feels like he's been hollowed out and that his insides are still impaled on the pike.

 

Venom doesn’t wait for a response (good thing too, because Eddie isn’t sure he has it in him to give a comment) and heaves the debris that anchored their legs in place.

 

Eddie doesn’t remember much about the slow journey out of the wreckage. He does register vaguely that they find the body of Murphy along the way (it looked like the lucky bastard died pretty quick, his head cudgeled to a pulp beneath a fallen hunk of ceiling). Despite Venom’s usual distaste for long-dead meat, they hastily snap up what remains in order to facilitate healing.

 

He retreats back inside Venom’s form as far as he can. Occasionally, the impulse to give in to unconsciousness curls around the edges of his awareness, only to be prodded away by Venom’s insistence that he stay in the waking world.

 

In this manner, he is only dimly aware of Venom taking hold of and puppeteering his body when the morning light and waking world could no longer conceal their movements along rooftops and shadows. Upon entering their apartment, he is guided to and propped up beside the refrigerator, which Venom wrenches open and raids mercilessly.

 

After an indeterminate period of time in which it is silent save for the sounds of Venom enthusiastically putting away about a week's worth of food.

 

“All better, V?” His voice emerged as a dry croak.

 

Venom movements are smoother, less agitated, as they move about the kitchen before joining Eddie on the floor, a glass of water offered forth.

 

**Not all better, but better, Eddie.**

 

Eddie gladly accepts the glass; the cool water helps to pacify the rawness in his throat.

 

The arch of light from the window gradually bends across the floor as Symbiote and host revel in the stillness, idly touching one another, each seeking tactile assurance of the other’s continued existence.

 

**Didn’t mean for that to happen.**

 

And the voice to comes from his other’s mouth is so small; remorse and uncertainty leaden the words. It all but breaks Eddie’s heart.

 

“I know.”

 

A weight coils around his torso, compressing firmly but gently atop the section of his chest that, not hours ago, was skewered through; now only an angry red line denotes the passage of the rod. An aborted shiver of sensory memory skitters up his spine. Venom moves to withdraw at this rush of negative reactions, but Eddie captures the retreating inky mass beneath his own hand and holds the Symbiote in place.

 

“We’ll be alright, love.”

 

And as they sit and watch dust motes dance in the sunlight they both desperately hope these words are true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I tried my best to make this chapter as medically accurate as feasible. I apologize if it falls short of that.
> 
> Not all future chapter will end on such a dark note, so please bear with me if you find this isn't your cup of tea. The next two planned chapter should be a nice change of pace from this one.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed! If you would be so kind, I'd love to know what you think! Kudos are lovely, but I absolutely adore comments. Also, if you want to make a prompt suggestion, I would love to hear it. Thank you!


	3. Poison

Let it be noted for the record that Eddie did learn something from his mistakes. Probably not to the full extent that others would wish, but hey, baby steps.

 

So nowadays he makes a conscious effort to not go flying full tilt into stupid situations without at least giving someone a heads up.

 

He shoots off a quick message to Anne’s phone:

 

_Eddie: FYI, interviewing at Golding Auction Gallery tonight._

_Eddie: If you don’t hear from me in 6 hours, things went bad._

 

He has just enough time to see Anne’s return message ( _Wtf are you getting into now??),_ before he hurriedly silences his phone and stuffs it into his pocket as the doors to the gallery open. A stone-faced man looms in the doorway, glaring down at Eddie from about a ten-inch height difference. Caught off guard, Eddie offers up an eloquent, “uh”, before the man steps out of the way and silently ushers him inside with his stoic body language.

 

“Mr. Brock, welcome. Please come in,” a pleasant voice greets him for within.

 

A petite woman whom he recognizes is Vivian Golding, the owner of the art gallery and accompanying auction house, of which was his current journalistic interest. He had reached out to her earlier in the month about possibly doing a story on her work in the local and international art trade, and subsequently requested an interview. Golding had been amiable to the suggestion and even invited him to stand in at one of the art auctions that was hosted earlier in the week.

 

He remembered feeling distinctly underdressed (despite Venom forming into a nice blazer so that their hapless host didn’t make the mistake of showing up in a leather riding jacket under the misguided assumption of a much more casual dress code), and the malaise of wealth that surrounded everyone else at the function was somewhat nauseating. Regardless of seeming very much out of his element, Golding had treated him as an honored guest and made sure he had a nice vantage point from which to view the proceeding auction.

 

Eddie had always liked to believe that he had a healthy appreciation of art. He and Anne had frequented more than one outdoor art festival in their time together and he liked to think that he had a good eye for aesthetic. Hell, if the many tattoos that covered his body did not speak to his regard for art in all its many forms, what did?

 

Apparently, the answer was shelling out over half a million dollars on still life paintings of flowers in vases. He’d nearly had an aneurysm watching the people in the audience throw around enough money in one night to feed and house all the homeless in the state. And from what he’d gathered, Golding’s auction house, while considerable in repute, was nowhere near the scale of some of the auction houses of New York and others around the world.

 

Golding had arranged for Eddie to come to the gallery after hours were she insisted on giving Eddie a private tour of the art collections on display while they conducted the interview. If the bouncer at the door was any indication, they wouldn’t be entirely alone. But that’s fine, he wasn’t either.

 

“Don’t mind Scott. He’s the night security here at the gallery. It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Brock.” Golding's smile is reserved but no less welcoming. After seeing her dressed to the nines at the auction, Eddie is somewhat relieved to see her in a more practical outfit, making him feel much less self-conscious about his own jeans and jacket.

 

Scott took that cue to close and lock the front entrance back up before shuffling away without a word, presumably to go back to surveying the building.

 

With that, they began the tour.

 

They walk at a sedate pace as Golding points out various paints or sculptures of note while Eddie records the proceedings on his phone and makes polite inquiries. It’s was clear from the way she spoke that Golding is very knowledgeable about each art movement and technique demonstrated in the works; her enthusiastic commentary often flying right over Eddie’s head. However, he did note with amusement that Venom seemed to hang on every word, considering each piece through Eddie’s eyes with intrigue.

 

Eddie had to admit, the extensive collection of artwork and antique artifacts on display here were impressive, to say the least. From a layman's perspective, it was difficult to grasp the value of each art piece, both in terms of monetary worth and historical worth. In fact, it was notable that almost every piece seemed to exude history in one way or another.

 

At length, he decided to voice this observation, “So, forgive me if I’m wrong, but there doesn’t seem to be all that many contemporary works here. Does you’re gallery specialize in historical pieces?”

 

“That would be correct Mr. Brock. Our speciality here is in works of antiquity and paintings ranging from the neoclassical all the way through Post-Impressionism, with a few occasional Expressionist works. At any given time there could be works of art spanning hundreds of years placed next to each other in our exhibits. Artifacts from Ancient Rome mere feet away from a Monet painting.” The picture laid out by Golding would be grand indeed, if it were true.

 

“And all these works, these artifacts and painting, they are all authenticated, yes?” Eddie knew that there was no going back once he’s started digging into the more sordid reasons for wanting this interview. Time to ruffle some potentially dangerous feathers.

 

As he predicted, Golding’s expression hardens at this question. She searches his face for a moment before diplomatically replying, “We do our best to have every work of art here examined and authenticated to the best of our abilities, Mr. Brock.”

 

Time to dig the knife in a little further.

 

“Yes but, isn’t it true that the provenance on some of the works that go through your auction house end up being a little dubious, if not completely missing in some cases?” He tries for casual, but by the end of the sentence, the accusation in his voice is a little too weighty.

 

“We have been as thorough as we can in tracing and certifying every piece that comes through the doors of this gallery.”

 

“What about the auction house?”

 

“They pull from the same stock, Mr. Brock.”

 

“Ms. Golding, we both know that’s not true. Not entirely, anyway. The catalogs produced from your auction house have an overwhelming number of collection lots that are not displayed in your gallery.”

 

“There is only so much space in the gallery. It would be impractical and unappealing to stuff this space full.” Golding demonstrates this point by gesturing around the already considerably stocked room they were in. “Private buyers do not want to see their potential purchases crammed together like in that of a convenience store.”

 

“I understand that, but isn’t it true that authentication can be a little more lax in the auction house, as you wouldn’t be dealing with a buyer face to face where such things can be called into question?”

 

At this point, the tension between the two is swiftly approaching a point of no return. Golding is now sporting a defined frown and looks close to tossing Eddie out.

 

He decides to extend an olive branch in hopes of repairing some damage. “I understand that some works can go hundreds of years without being uncovered. Someone’s granddad dies, the family goes poking around his attic, and lo and behold there’s a treasure trove of art that nobody knew the slightest bit about. That probably happens more often than not with some of these pieces, I get that. So the origins of a given work are lost to time. Totally understandable.”

 

Golding seems at least somewhat mollified by this train of logic. “That is correct, Mr. Brock. As I’ve said, we do our best with each piece, but some just cannot be authenticated beyond a shadow of a doubt. That would be an impossible standard to hold against any art gallery or auction house.”

 

Well, now it seemed like they were getting somewhere. Time to push his luck further.

 

“So then, if you don’t mind me asking, would you like to make a comment about the alleged accusations that your auction house deals near constantly in counterfeit art?”

 

Golding seemed to have anticipated this line of questioning. Really, anyone who agrees to an interview with Eddie Brock should at this point know what they're in for. Even so, subtle tiredness seems to pinch at her eyes.

 

“I don’t suppose you are referring to the Turner and Bennett incidents are you?”

 

“Among others, yeah. But in the wake of those two ‘incidents’, as you say, my primary sources would like to remain anonymous. I’m sure you can understand that.” Eddie offers a wry smile. That fact that this wasn’t turning into another Drake situation yet was promising, but he had to play it cool.

 

“Fine, I will answer your questions, but only because I know you’ll somehow twist my silence into something more damning. But if your sources get to be anonymous, I ask the same. This is off the record, Mr. Brock. I would kindly ask you to turn off your phone.”

 

Eddie makes a show of turning off the recording app and shutting his phone off. He places the device in the back pocket of his jeans and keeps his hands in front of him.

 

Of course, unbeknownst to Golding, as soon as the phone makes its way into Eddie’s pocket, a couple of deft tendrils turn the phone back on and resume the recording app all within the span of moments. Eddie reserves a private internal grin for his other before shifting his focus back to the moment at hand.

 

“If you would follow me, Mr. Brock, I have an office in the back. Might as well get comfortable if we’re going to talk about such things. I thank you for your cooperation, as you must understand, even discussing these matters can cast considerable doubt on my business's reputation.”

 

Eddie trails after Golding, noting along the way, how deep into the building they were going. Something about art galleries and the structure of their various layouts always turned Eddie around. There didn’t seem to be any real logic to the room set up and with the various twists and turns they were taking, it was disconcerting how lost he was beginning to feel.

 

Eventually, though, they make it to a back room area. Beyond that is a spacious office with a number of discreet filing cabinets, but also with a cozy seating area to one side. No doubt this was where more privileged private client meetings took place.

 

“I don’t know about you Mr. Brock, but I’ve had a long day, and this questioning will only make it feel longer. We have a selection of wines that we provide in the back here, for special events or special buyers, or in this case, nosy reporters,” there is just enough humor in her voice to put Eddie at ease. Coming to some conclusion, she replies airily, “yes I think I’ll have a glass of Merlot. Would you care for some as well, Mr. Brock?”

 

Deciding that agreeing to this show of hospitality might win him a better rapport, he graciously accepts the offer. He stifles a snort of amusement into a cough as Venom grumbles within his head in anticipation of the alcohol to come. The Symbiote was adamantly against the stuff on the principle that it was a needlessly stupid and self-destructive thing to indulge in.

 

As Eddie made himself comfortable in a chair, careful to position himself in such a way that his phone’s recorder wouldn’t be obscured, but that he didn’t look unnaturally stiff, Golding pressed an intercom on her desk.

 

“Scott, if you have a moment, could you bring Mr. Brock and myself some Merlot? The 2014 from the back, if you please.” That being done, Golding joined Eddie, sitting across from him in a relaxed recline. “Alright, Mr. Brock.”

 

“Eddie is fine.”

 

“Vivian to you, then. If you don’t mind me asking, my little art gallery cannot be your sole focus at the moment for an intrepid reporter like you?”

 

Well, didn’t that smack of sarcasm?

 

“No, I have a couple of projects at the moment,” he divulges neutrally.

 

“Ah, now I don’t feel quite so special I suppose,” she says dryly but with a smile. “What would you like to discuss, Eddie?”

 

At last, they could remove all pretenses and play hardball.

 

“There have been a dozen documented cases of previous buys from your auction house stepping forward and claiming that you sold them forgeries. The most recent of these cases are that of Mr. Turner and Mr. Bennett, but we’ll get to that—“

 

“I am aware of the unsubstantiated claims in question. If there were truly any cases to be made, why did none of these decriers ever take these claims to court? Simple, they had no evidence.” The way Golding rattles off this explanation sounds practiced and long-suffering.

 

“It must take a lot of humility for these art aficionados to come forward and admit to being duped out of millions of dollars. Why would they suddenly recant their statements do you think?” He hedges meaningfully.

 

“Easy, the art world told them to shut their mouths.”

 

Just at that moment, Scott knocks on the door of the office and enters with two glasses of wine in hand. Without saying a word he presents a glass each of them, handing them off hurriedly before escaping again.  Probably off to frown at a few surveillance monitors.

 

Golding must pick up on his unease because she reassures, “Don’t mind Scott, he’s always like that,” before taking a sip from her glass.

 

Eddie follows likewise. He isn’t a big wine drinker but he finds the smooth, fruity notes enjoyable enough. It leaves a soft tingle in his mouth after he swallows. He can feel his Symbiote other tracking the progression of the wine down his esophagus with overt disapproval, but they remain silent on the matter.

 

“Right,” he clears his throat and regains his train of thought, “so why would the art world silence these guys? Wouldn’t it be in everyone’s best interest if they came forward?”

 

“Not particularly,” Golding takes another sip before apparently steeling herself to divulge more. “I will say right now, Eddie, if you’d hoped to somehow profit off of besmirching the reputation of my gallery, there are some things you must know. Primarily of which, I would estimate, is that more than half the auction houses in the world pass counterfeits through their doors on any given day. No one will openly admit it, but they all know it. I must say, I am rather flattered that you are focusing on my business above all else, but you are asking people to take up outrage against a problem that is so much larger than my business and myself.”

 

Well, that was a much more candid response than he had hoped to receive. “Then you admit to sending forgeries through your auction house, yes?”

 

“You miss my point,” Golding huffs with evident frustration, “there is no avoiding forgeries. The art market is fraught with them and even the best experts are fooled. There is no intent to deceive, it merely happens.”

 

Eddie considers this for a moment, taking another pull from his glass. Again, a slight tingling sensation irritates the back of his throat and causes him to muffle a cough. Was it warm in here?

 

**_Poison._ **

 

Venom had been silent in his head for so long that Eddie nearly jumps at the growl that rips between his ears.

 

 _I know, V, but it’s kind of a politeness thing,_ he projects to his other, trying to mollify the aggravated Symbiote.

 

**_Not the alcohol, Eddie. Something in the drink is actively trying to reduce cellular oxidative metabolism and deplete glutamine synthesis._ **

 

_Mind running that by me one more time, babe?_

 

**_Your body has been compromised._ _  
_ **

 

Right. Well, that would explain why he suddenly feels so clammy. He glances down at the glass in his hand.

 

_Are we going to be alright, V?_

 

**_Of course._ **

 

The nonchalance with which Venom responds almost gives him whiplash. _Wait, really?_

 

**_We are used to scouring every last bit of harmful substance you idiotically put into our body. Why would this be any different?_ **

 

_You’re able to metabolize it ok? It’s not hurting you?_

 

**_We will be fine, Eddie._ **

 

With that reassurance, Eddie hurriedly takes another gulp from his glass.

 

**_What are you doing?!_ **

 

_Gotta keep up appearances, babe. As far as Golding knows, we don’t know that anything is wrong, but if she only thinks we’ve got a short time to live, maybe she’ll slip us some more info. Can you give me a couple of convincing symptoms?_

 

Just like that, Eddie feels his stomach give a lurch. He reflexively clasps a hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting.

 

_Asshole._

**_You’re welcome._ **

 

“Are you alright, Eddie?” Golding asks with feigned concern. Now that Eddie is paying more attention, the woman across from him doesn’t look at all surprised or sympathetic to his sudden indication of illness.

 

After a few convulsive swallows, he assures her with a mumbled, “fine, fine. Just the wine going to my head, probably. I’m not a huge alcohol drinker.”

 

She accepts his explanation a little too quickly and he takes another sip from his glass to continue their game.

 

“Now,” he says with an effort to gather himself back together, “to be completely honest with you, Vivian, I’m not here to split hairs over whether or not your works of art are forgeries. That’s for you and yours to worry over. I won’t cry if a couple of billionaires get swindled out of a cool couple million dollars; they won’t miss it.”

 

To demonstrate his blasé attitude, he throws back the rest of the wine in his glass. This earns him an amused noise from Golding and protests from Venom.

 

**_No more, Eddie. We can metabolize it, yes, but the process is taxing._ **

 

_Duly noted._

 

“No, what I want to know, Vivian, if forforgeries are such a common occurrence in the art world, why is it that whenever someone happened to go public about your gallery and auction house, in particular, they either recant the accusations within hours or they happen to end up dead?”

 

Golding looks distinctly uncomfortable, but Eddie rushes on before she can derail his argument.

 

“Mr. Turner bought a Degas painting from your auction house last year. He then tried to donate the piece to charity, only to be told it couldn’t be accepted because it was a worthless fake. I’m sure you remember how he threatened to take you to court just this past fall, only to suddenly commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of the night. The police called it an open-and-shut case even though there were no witnesses and Mr. Turner's body was found with ligature marks around his wrists and ankles. Then there was the case of Mr. Bennett who went public over his outrage at your auction houses shady practices just this past December. Only he disappeared just recently under mysterious circumstances. The police have no handy explanation to that one. Any comment, Vivian?”

 

Golding is fuming. No doubt, if she wasn’t so confident that he would be dropping dead in short time, Eddie wouldn’t put it past her to try and strangle him with her own hands. Instead, she goes to her intercom and asks Scott to bring more wine for her guest. The nauseating sweetness with which she makes the request belied a vitriolic foreboding.

 

_How you doing, V?_

 

**_Tired, Eddie._ **

 

And indeed, his other’s voice was laced with a concerning amount of lethargy.

_Think you can keep up with another dose? Doesn’t look like we’ll have much choice if we want to get what we came here for._

**_We will manage._ **

 

_Thank you, love._

 

If filtering the poison from his bloodstream was affecting Venom this heavily, Eddie needed to come up with an exit strategy. Golding was counting on him dropping dead soon, so she must have a plan set up to get rid of his body. He would cross that bridge when it came time, but his biggest concern at the moment was getting Golding to confess, and then getting the recordings uploaded and stored before anything happens to his phone.

 

Golding appeared to have regained her composure; sure as she was in the fact that Eddie wouldn’t be a problem for much longer, and if the cold sweat and nausea that now crept through him were anything to go by, he wouldn’t be.

 

“I do have some comments, Eddie.” Just as she says this, Scott is back in the doorway, presenting her with another glass of wine, one this time, which she shoves into Eddie’s shaky hands. “But first, drink up. I know you said you don’t have a taste for wine, but really I insist.” She returns to her own seat and sips from her own glass in example. Eddie notes warily that Scott does not leave this time, haunting the outer edge of the office doorway conspicuously.

 

He takes a drink, making eye contact with the other man the whole time, before returning his attention to Golding.

 

Seemingly satisfied with his cooperation, she continues. “Whatever it is you are hinting at, Mr. Brock, is completely baseless.”

 

Ah, it was back to last names again, was it? It seemed he needed to play up his symptoms as a dying man a little harder.

 

He shudders and lets out a coughing fit that leaves his body aching in a way he doesn’t have to fake. With a tiny nudge to Venom for assistance, he staggers feebly from his seat and makes a grab for the nearest trashcan. After a few unpleasant heaves into the receptacle clutched between his sweaty hands, he’s just about ready to be called forth for an Oscar.

 

Golding also finds his act convincing beyond a doubt and is apparently all cued up for her villain monologue.

 

“You know, Mr. Brock, you must be a very stupid man coming in here thinking you could get one up on me. I saw your interview with Carlton Drake, and I thought to myself, surely this is a desperate fluke. Surely Brock doesn’t charge into every situation with a naïve hope that everyone will just admit to their crimes. Not with the flimsy accusations you’re throwing around.”

 

She stands up and walks over to Eddie, positioning herself in his line of sight, shoulder casually braced back against the wall and arms crossed in smug condescension.

 

Venom snarls a warning that only he can hear.

 

“All you have to go in is one death and one disappearance. Pathetic. I’ve been at this game a long time, Eddie, and let me tell you, there have been many more than just those most recent two. This is so much more than art forgery. You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” she makes eye contact over his shoulder just then, “and you never will.”

 

He isn’t fast enough, with a half second of anticipation, to dodge the blow completely. The connecting strike to the back of Eddie’s head is so suddenly that he has no time to register slamming into the ground. In a daze, he rolls over and shifts out of the way just in time to avoid the swing of a bat cracking down on the floor just inches from his skull.

 

He scrambles back and catches himself on the doorway. With a swipe of his legs, he is able to unbalance Scott and send the man stumbling, but only for a scant moment.

 

Venom assists in hauling his limbs into action, alleviating the physical symptoms the poison wrought on his body like stripping off a coat. In short order, he is running through the gallery.

 

Obviously, Scott and Golding were not prepared for Eddie to spring from the floor; healthy as the moment he walked in. It takes a couple of seconds before Eddie can hear his pursuers racing after him.

 

As he runs, frantically trying to find his way back out through the confusing gallery, Eddie whips his phone out and checks on the recording. With a short few inputs, a copy of the recording from that evening is uploading to his email where it is instantly sent to Anne. If there was anyone who knew how to properly use the incriminating evidence he had gathered tonight, it was her.

 

Suddenly, as if his legs lost all blood flow and fell asleep, Eddie is sent sprawling to the ground.  He sprawls, stunned for a moment.

 

“V? What’s happening?” He can’t help the panic seeping into his voice. From a couple of rooms away he hears pounding footsteps.

 

**_Tired, Eddie._ **

 

“I get that, but why am _I_ affected?”

 

 **_Need to rest. We have been manually processing the_ ** **_cellular metabolism of glucose throughout your cells since the substance entered our blood._ **

 

Oh fuck. The battle that Venom had been fighting to maintain Eddie’s bodily integrate hadn’t been apparent at the time that they had first alerted him to the issue at hand. His body-mate had been actively warring with a poison that had spread to his very cells, and Eddie hadn’t taken the threat seriously.

 

All because he was trying to pursue a scoop.

 

He never did learn. He’d taken advantage of Venom just like he’d taken advantage of Anne back with the Life Foundation.

 

 _God,_ he was such a _fucking idiot_.

 

_I’m sorry, V. I’ll get us out of this, somehow._

 

**_No time, Eddie. We must sleep. Now._ **

 

And it was like someone had hit him with a tranquilizer dart. The sucking void of Venom’s exhausting was impossible to escape and he quickly found it impossible to resist.

 

In his last moments of consciousness, sprawled out on the ground as he was, he heard a voice from above him remark with derision, “get rid of the body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this one turned out much longer than intended. I apologize if a lot of points in this chapter seemed overly repetitive, I really wanted to focus in on Eddie's investigative journalist nature. I fear that may have made for a chapter that was much heavier on dialogue rather than action.
> 
> Integral to my brief education into the world of art forgery were the documentaries: "Fakes in the art World - The Mystery Conman" and "Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery" both of which are available to watch on Youtube. I highly recommend these documentaries, especially the latter.
> 
> If you were curious, the poison that I based this all on is Sodium fluoroacetate (Compound 1080)! I picked it among other poisons because it is highly toxic specifically to obligate aerobic organisms (organisms that survive and grow in oxygenated environments). I felt that it would be intriguing for Venom, a creature that needs an aerobic dependent host to survive, to face off against a substance that essentially threatened that very pivotal nature of their host. I imagined that the process of keeping all the cells in Eddie's body from decaying on a massive scale would be taxing, to say the least. Don't worry, the two of them just need to sleep it off.
> 
> The next chapter will pick up right where this one left off. Hopefully, I won't get sidetracked, and that chapter will be coming very soon.


	4. Drowning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by Krazyfan1 who suggested that Eddie and Venom be tied up and tossed overboard, only to discover that they can breathe underwater.

There were a number of strange and awkward places Eddie had had the misfortune of waking up in during the course of his life. Long nights spent chasing leads or even just caffeine-fueled evenings in, trying to meet deadlines, tended to end, one way or another, with him crashing in unconventional places (Like the time he woke up at a table in a diner up-state that he had no memory of entering; his face dangerously close to landing in a plate of eggs. Or the time he boarded a bus that would take him back home, only to wake up five hours later to discover the vehicle deserted and locked up with him inside, parked at the bus depot.).

 

Even the addition of Venom in his life could not disrupt this pattern. Just a few months into the pair’s cohabitation he was wrenched from sleep one early morning to discover first that he was standing in the kitchen, second that before him was a skillet with the blackened remains of _something_ that was on fire, third that the shriek of a rarely functional smoke alarm was piercing his ears, and, last but not least, a panicked Symbiote flailing about, completely incensed at being confronted their two greatest weaknesses rolled all into one worst-case scenario.

 

Much later, Eddie was able to gather from his shaken other that they had grown hungry in the middle of the night and, unwilling to disturb their sleep-deprived host, had taken it upon themself to puppeteer Eddie’s unconscious body through the process of making pancakes. From then on, Eddie made sure to stock the kitchen with snacks (that required no preparation) to satisfy Venom’s midnight cravings.

 

These occurrences were not frequent per se, but happened to him enough that his first instinct was (miraculously enough) not to panic. Rather, his groggy mind was now gradually gathering together with the central goal of parsing out his location and the circumstances surrounding it.

 

The most apparent sensation he perceives is that the hard surface that his body was unceremoniously sprawled atop was vibrating violently with a consistency that suggested a motor. He was on a vehicle, but one that was not insulated. The sharp, cold bite of the open air and the faint taste of salt that crusted his lips brought images of the ocean floating to the surface of his memory. A boat.

 

He tries to lift his head off of the floor; the insistent thrum of the engine jack-hammered a jolting tempo through his skull that threatened a migraine. Distantly he is made aware of some kind of tarp that had been haphazardly wrapped around his prone form, thankfully ending just before the crown of his head or else he might have suffocated in the thick material.

 

With a few small movements, he is able to determine that the tarp is fastened around him with what he could only guess were several bungee cords; arms pinned to his sides and legs held fast by the restraints with little give to speak of. With some time he’s confident he would be able to jostle himself free, but without knowing where he was in relation to the people that had trussed him up, it was unlikely to end well. At least, not without help.

 

 _V?_ he does his best to query his other, _you ok?_

 

He can feel the Symbiote’s presence just at the peripheral of his mind, almost inanimate in their disturbing stillness.

 

With an effort, Eddie does his best to recall just how it was that the two of them ended up here. He had gone to do an interview. One that apparently hadn’t ended well.

 

Golding. That’s right, he had gone in under the pretense of an interview to confront the art dealer of shady business and the even shadier demise of two of her most vocal recent critics. One allegedly jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge; when the body washed ashore it was ruled rather quickly as a suicide, even though there was evidence of foul play. The second simply disappeared; suggesting that whoever was in charge of getting rid of Golding’s enemies didn’t want to chance a corpse being found again and perhaps lending credence to a pattern.

 

If the present circumstances were anything to go by, Eddie was about to join that body count.

 

Luckily for him, judging by the whole and unharmed condition of his body, the ones organizing his little disappearing act had taken for granted that he had already expired via poison without feeling the need to check his pulse. Even for the garden-variety criminal underling, that seemed a particularly amateurish move. But not even Eddie was immune to being submerged in the bay.

 

_Venom? I really kinda need you to wake up._

 

His insistent mental prodding earned him the equivalent of a long-suffering groan for the other occupant of his body.

 

**_Tired, Eddie._ **

 

Ecstatic to hear the resonance of the Symbiote drift through his head, Eddie presses forward in reassurance. _I know, love, and I promise we’ll take it easy once we’re out of here, but if we don’t do something soon, we’re going to be fish food._

 

Venom’s consciousness, something that Eddie typically experienced as a comforting weight in his thoughts, is muddled and lethargic. Whatever the Symbiote had done to combat the poison that had swept through Eddie’s veins had taken a significant toll on them.

 

This state of disorientation scared Eddie. Venom was meant to be the stronger of the two of them. They were the one that carried them through conflicts, whether or not it was something big like cutting down combatants that the pair faced off against, or something insignificant, like mending his burnt tongue when he drank his coffee to fast in the morning. Eddie liked to believe that he hadn’t been taking Venom’s care for his continual wellbeing for granted, but in this case, he had acted needlessly reckless, resulting in the harm of his other.

 

He did his best to push past the guilt that threatened to engulf him. Now was not the time for self-pity. There would be opportunities in the future to apologize to Venom, but only if the two of them found a way out first.

 

Before he can try and rouse his listless body-mate once more, the motor slows before idling to a stop. Without the roar of the engine to contend with, Eddie is only just able to make out a drone of muffled voices through the tarp.

 

Footsteps approach. There is precious little time and Venom still seems barely cognizant of the deadly nature of the situation.

 

_Now would be a really good time to come on out and take charge! Please help me out here, V!_

He feels his other stir awake inside him, but the action is similar to one stumbling about in a stupor, barely staving off keeling over.

 

Just as Eddie is urging his other to some semblance of coherence, a foot connects with his side and rolls him. He gives a violent involuntary jerk at the contact.

 

“What the hell? Did he just move?”

 

“No dipshit, I just kicked him. You think a corpse is gonna get up and move on its own?”

 

As these distorted words filter through Eddie’s panicked mind, several hands grip various points on the tarp constricting him. He is then unceremoniously dragged like a sack of potatoes across the haul of the boat. He knows what's coming next, and even if he himself cannot stop it, like hell he’d give up without a fight.

 

With that thought in mind, he throws his body into his captors in an attempt to knock them off balance, thrashing as best he can in his constraints. This earns him a cacophony of alarmed yells and curses, along with a distinctly satisfying hit with his legs that sends one of his assailants slamming hard to the surface of the deck nearby.

 

However, his retaliation is short lived and soon put to an end when a volley of kicks impact his solar plexus. He is rendered helpless to do anything more than curl inward against the debilitating pain of the assault to his gut.

 

**_Eddie!_ **

 

Through his swimming senses and the effort to avert the urgent need to vomit, Eddie can just make out a litany of voices, all speaking quickly.

 

“Fuck! _Fuck!_ I thought you said he was dead!”

 

“He fucking should be! He drank a dose that could have taken out four men let alone one!”

 

“You inept idiots, it doesn’t matter anyway. He’ll be just another piece of trash at the bottom of the bay if you all can get your shit together long enough to grab him!”

 

He feels hands grapple with the tarp surrounding him once more, but this time, with pain radiating through his gut with a blistering throb, he can do little more than twist weakly against their pull.

 

He only has seconds to register the sudden shift in gravity before he hits the water headfirst.

 

He resists the reflex to gasp as the frigid water around him saps the strength from his thrashing limbs; constricting his cells and arresting the air in his lungs.

 

The weight of his saturated bindings must be enough to gradually pull him beneath the waves because, as near as he can tell, what little light was viewable from the surface is diminishing fast. Despite his best efforts, stray bubbles of oxygen slip past his clenched lips.

 

 _Venom!_ He can feel the Symbiote roiling through his head, the assault on their shared body and the threat at hand having sufficiently brought them back. _Venom, please! We need to get back to the surface!_

 

A loud burst of noise from above and a torrent of bubbles and thrashing water indicates the departure of the boat. He feels Venom's momentary distraction by this and the rage that floods their body causes Eddie to flinch. _Forget them! We’ve got bigger problems!_

 

The unmistakable sensation of Venom manifesting from him is followed by a series of tugging and jerking sensations to his binds. A few unstick but the majority still hold him fast.

 

His lungs are burning. The air in his body is growing stale and toxic. He can tell that Venom’s movements grow more distressed; fighting frantically with the cords as their host suffocates.

 

Distantly, Eddie remembers a memory Venom shared with him once. He had asked the Symbiote about the time they had spent in the labs of the Life Foundation before the two had met. He could tell that his other was affected negatively by the experience, but he could never have fathomed to what degree. They had shared the memory with him, projecting their point of view right into his mind.

 

There had been torture; humans in lab coats subjecting them to extreme heat and cold, and exposing them to various chemical compounds. There had been biopsies of their living mass; chunks of them placed dispassionately between microscope slides and observed until the separated pieces could no longer be felt by the whole and abandon to a slow death.

 

They had starved. The hosts they had eventually been given had been fed, yes, but the Symbiotes themselves were wasting away in their containers for some months before that point. Emaciated and weak, they had no choice but to violently slaughter and consume the first handful of hosts presented to them. They had not regretted the act, at least not at first, not until they found Eddie and learned that not all humans were calculated killers of all life, including their own.

 

The worst aspect of the whole of those many months held in isolation and captivity had been those terrifying moments between hosts where the very atmosphere around their exposed forms burned them. They thrashed around their enclosure, trying desperately to reach the humans on the other side of the glass, all the while hating them, wanting to rip them to bits and eat their entrails; caught in a war between needing their abilities to process the oxygen they themself suffocated on and wanting to kill them insidiously.

 

More than anything else, Eddie remembered the pain of oxygen, like an acid drip across the mass of his other so acutely felt that the memories became inseparable from his own. The pair’s separation in the hospital at Anne’s hand had taken on a new nightmarish layer of context after that.

 

Now, sinking into the depths of some unknown part of the San Francisco Bay, Eddie felt terror give way.

 

His oxygen-starved lips slip open to accept the rush of water.

 

But instead of the ocean flooding his lungs, there is air.

 

_Wha—_

 

**_Fixed it, Eddie._ **

 

Well, that was cryptic.

 

_V, what’s happening?_

****

**_You are breathing, Eddie._ **

_Breathing underwater?_

**_Yes._ **

_Like, the way humans were never meant to? How?_

****

**_We are breaking down the water molecules into their base components and pumping the oxygen into your body. Like a fish._ **

_Oh god, I haven’t grown gills, have I?_

 

 ** _No._** A contemplative pause follows. **_Do you want some?_**

_No!_

With the most pressing need for oxygen addressed, Eddie is left to drift aimlessly in the dark water, contemplating the absurdity of the situation while Venom’s tendrils try and unbind him. Eventually, the Symbiote gets frustrated and in a last-ditch burst of energy, forms over Eddie, but with an external texture of serrated edges, much like their claws. They shred the tarp and cord from the inside out in one fluid movement that mimics the raw destructive power of a chainsaw.

 

Now free and in the clear, Venom takes a few preliminary movements through the ocean. Through his other’s superior sight, Eddie can make out the soft play of light, dappled and twisting in passive vertical columns from the full moon above the surf.

 

The peace that washes through the both of them in the wake of the panic from earlier has an almost sedate quality about it.

 

That is, until Venom’s still recovering state makes itself apparent once more through the force of their hunger.

 

Something catches their attention.

 

In a movement too quick for Eddie to follow, Venom’s jaws are snapping down on something large and wriggling. As the shape disappears down their maw, still mostly alive and whole, Eddie reels in discomfort.

 

**_Sushi, Eddie._ **

 

The purr of delight from his other is almost infectious enough to rein in his disgust.

 

_Sure, love. I'm just not used to it being quite this fresh._

 

Eddie is content to sit back and allow his love to hunt in the ocean depths, striking out and snacking on as many fish as their (figurative) little heart desired. The warm tranquility of fullness, coupled with a definitive wholeness, pervades the two. They trade soft assurances back an forth between each other, reveling in their coexistence in the face of their latest near-miss with death.

 

Before long, a thought occurs to Eddie.

 

_You know, love, I get that fish is great and all, but the bad guys are getting away. If you’re done with the appetizers, there’s a boat full of entrées just a quick swim away._

 

A too toothy grin splits their shared visage.

 

**_Oh, Eddie, we like the way you think._ **

* * *

 

Eddie doesn’t remember much about the journey back to his apartment, other than sliding into bed with the distant thought of washing away the stink of ocean and blood whenever he wakes up again. But it is a pounding at his door that disturbs him awake, much too soon by his estimate.

 

“Want to eat whoevers causing such a racket, babe?” he slurs through the mass of his pillow.

 

**It is Anne.**

 

Oh shit.

 

He lurches up out of bed and runs to the door, unlocking it with jittery movement before allowing it to swing wide. The look that greets him on the other side is less than amused.

 

Anne does not yell at him; rather, from behind crossed arms, her calculation gaze studies his disheveled appearance, allowing him to squirm self-consciously for a few moments, before returning up to his face.

 

“You two have had a busy night, haven’t you?”

 

He begins to fidget, running his fingers through his hair in a telltale admission of guilt. “Uh-“

 

“Save it, Eddie.” She walks past him, closing and securing the door behind her before making her way to a seat at the cluttered countertop. As Eddie trails behind, Venom manifests from over his shoulder, periscoping forward in curiosity.

 

“First, I get a text from you at 9:00 last night informing me of your location at that, and I quote, ‘if you don’t hear from me in 6 hours, things went bad’. You don’t both to give me any details beyond that.  I panicked, as I'm sure you can imagine.”

 

“I just thought you should know, from me, in case something happened…”

 

“If the two of you are going to pull this kind of shit again, for future reference, you need to tell me more than a location and a vague warning.”

 

Eddie allows the feeling of chastisement to pervade him only for a moment before he perks back up. “You did get my email though, right?”

 

“The recording of the admission to forgery, yeah, can’t say that I’m impressed.”

 

“What? No! Golding admits to having two people killed and hints at others!”

 

Anne looks over at him with a pinched expression, her lips tugged down in a slight frown. “Eddie, did you listen back to the audio?”

 

A sinking feeling pinpricks his gut. “No, I— I haven’t had time.”

 

Anne nods to herself before pulling up the email on her phone. She fast-forwards through the audio, reaching to about 3/4th of the way through before she stops and lets it play.

 

Eddie listens with growing dread as Golding’s voice, in a slightly muffled approximation of the original, says _'_ _Whatever it is you are hinting at, Mr. Brock, is completely baseless’_. After that, he makes out the violent sounds of his past-self heaving into a wastebasket. Everything after is muffled. Too distorted to make out.

 

It dawns on him just then that the phone had been in his back pocket. He had _sat_ on it when he’d ended up on the floor, curled around the trashcan, desperately fighting the symptoms of the poison and trying to convince Golding that she had won. Only it appeared she had.

 

He listens, desperate and in denial to the remained of the recording, up until it cuts off abruptly with the nebulous sounds of a physical struggle.

 

The two humans and Symbiote sit in silence for a few short moments, the gravity of the situation sinking in.

 

“You have to believe me, Anne, that woman tried to kill me, me and Venom. _Twice!_ ”

 

With that, the floodgates open and Eddie relates the whole sordid sequence of events between the time they went into the gallery that night up until they woke up just twenty minutes ago. Venom confirms and gives insightful explanations as needed.

 

In the end, Anne looks between the two of them and wraps Eddie up in a crushing hug. The pair of them hesitate for only a moment before returning the embrace; Venom hunkering down and wedging themself into the warm space between Anne’s neck and shoulder while Eddie tucks his chin down on the other.

 

“For what it's worth,” she says from her position, snug between the two, “I believe you and I'm glad you guys are safe.”  After a long moment, she pulls away with a sigh. “But that doesn’t change the fact that no court will accept this as evidence.”

 

“Yeah, and knowing our luck, Golding will already know we’re still alive.”

 

“About that,” and the miffed expression of earlier is back. “You two weren’t exactly subtle last night.”

 

With that Anne pulls up an article from that morning on her phone and hands it back to Eddie. The bold headline proclaims: “Massacre in the Bay! Coast Guard discovers abandoned motorboat awash in blood!”

 

Eddie skims the first few lines of the hastily written and hyperbolic article, surmising that authorities were baffled this morning by a beached boat turned crime scene. Curiously enough, there didn’t seem to be any human evidence of foul play, but rather a series of perplexing animalistic claw marks gouged into the haul of the boat led many to speculate that whoever was onboard had been trying to smuggle an exotic animal, that had evidently gotten lose and wreaked bloody havoc. Big cat experts were being flown in to give their expert opinion on such a likelihood.

 

Venom lets out tiny huffs of amusement at this.

 

“Yeah, laugh it up, but you two need to be more careful next time.” Even with her warning, Anne can’t fully suppress a smile. She sobers up presently though, looking from Eddie to Venom and back.

 

“If Golding really tried to kill and get rid of you, she’s not going to just leave you alone once she finds out you're still alive. Speaking strictly as your friend and _not_ your legal adviser, and completely off the record,” she pauses, debating internally with herself for a few moments before coming to a conclusion, “you need to strike first this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's how this 2-parter string of chapters turned into a 3-parter! (to be concluded next time, I promise)
> 
> So, I realized about halfway through writing this chapter that the scenario that the Venom movie set up with the whole "Symbiote's need an obligate aerobic host because oxygen is bad for them" isn't really compatible with comic Venom's canon ability to breathe underwater. The process of separating the water molecule into 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen would put the Symbiote in direct contact with oxygen, so yeah.
> 
> I tried my best to kinda blur the lines of plausibility but in the end, I would just like to requestion that we all suspend our disbelief for this one. Let's just say this chapter is a little more inspired by the comics.
> 
> Just a little update, I've not been feeling well and that's primarily why this chapter came a little late-ish. I've also got the stress of mid-terms coming up fast. What I'm saying is that I don't know if I'll be able to get the next chapter out in a timely manner, but I'll do my best.
> 
> Thank you to everyone for all the lovely support! It means the world to me!


	5. Possum

They play it smart this time. Or at the very least, less brazen.

 

They scope out the activity around Golding Auction Gallery for a little over a week, careful to not be seen and watching their backs every step of the way. A blueprint of the gallery’s interior (obtained from one of Eddie’s old contacts) is studied exhaustively; unwilling as they both were to be tripped up by the meandering exhibit halls and floor plan that had nearly cost them everything last time.

 

They take extra precautions to throw off any would-be tails. Eddie’s apartment address, while not exactly public knowledge, wouldn’t be too difficult to find. With that in mind, to curtail any potential visits from hitmen or the like, Eddie decided to check in at a discreet hotel (under a false name) on the edge of the city.

 

He made sure to check in and consult with Anne. Keeping her aware of the situation had become a priority, especially with the dangerous implications of her connection to him. The last thing he wanted was for anyone looking for him to grow frustrated and seek out her or Dan because of their friendship. Thankfully, things didn’t seem to be unfolding that way.

 

In fact, as far as he could tell, nothing seemed to be happening.

 

Of course, this could all be a setup. He’d underestimated Golding once and was determined to never do so again. However, as he spent another hour, hunkered down on a nearby rooftop, watching as the last of the curious gallery viewer foot traffic moved on for the night, he couldn’t help but consider Anne’s advice. If Golding wasn’t actively coming after him, perhaps he would need to take the fight to her.

 

Or at the very least, get a closer look, because the outside façade of the building was revealing nothing but frustration.

 

As the gallery doors closed for the night, a sense of foreboding hung over the situation like ambient feedback just at the edge of hearing. It would do well to adhere to caution.

 

With that in mind, by the deepening night gloom Venom took over, enfolding him and guiding their movements down back alleys and through the shadows, leading them to a high window along the gallery’s back exterior. The blueprint indicated that an interior wall overlapped this particular window, allowing for an employee “backstage” of sorts so that personnel could enter and exit a space seamlessly. The window was an afterthought, leftover from the original building design and a very convenient blind spot for a point of entry. How they safeguarded the place from a veritable swarm of opportunistic thieves was a wonder.

 

Venom’s mass seeps between the seams of the window, and with a deft maneuver, silently _pops_ the glass from the frame. Making their way inside and clinging like a menacing gecko to the high wall, they neatly affix the pane back into place behind them. Dropping to the floor, Venom withdraws back into Eddie, but not before their host presses a kiss to the retreating goo along with a hushed “thanks love”.

 

He makes his way along the back corridors of the employee walkways, careful to stay just out of the range of any points of high camera surveillance. Eventually, he finds his way to a familiar back room. This area gives way to the target, Golding’s office. At Venom’s insistence that there is no one around, Eddie makes his way into the space.

 

It was hard to imagine the innocuous office as the setting of their near demise; looking polished and yet pleasant, with a sophistication that exemplified the aesthetic of the gallery itself. A place where one could picture a hundred million dollars of art being negotiated on just as easily as a man could lie dying on the carpet. He couldn’t help a shiver at the thought.

 

With a gentle internal nudge from his other, he moves forward. He doubts that the desk will reveal anything particularly incriminating but decided to give that a go first. The only things of vague interest were a couple of letters that carried on a correspondence that could be using coded language but it wasn’t worth wasting time over.

 

The filing cabinets seemed the better bet for any kind of information about the organization Golding worked in. The cabinets are locked, each drawer fitted with a keyhole. Luckily, this presents little challenge to his other, the amorphous nature of which easily slid into the locks and jostled the internal mechanisms and tumblers until a gratifying _click_ gave way to the drawer sliding open.

 

“If you were desperate for a follow-up after our last interview, Mr. Brock, all you had to do was ask.”

 

He whips around and spots a petite silhouette in the open doorway seconds before a switch is flipped and the room is flooded with light. Golding stands in the doorway, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. The expression is frighteningly reminiscent of the chastising looks Anne had thrown his way on more than one occasion.

 

“I—I didn’t see you there, Viv,” he attempts to close the cabinet behind him with a subtle nudge of the hip, but the drawer just _bangs_ off of the metal frame and rebounds incriminatingly back at him.

 

Smooth.

 

Golding lets him fidget for a half second before her posture relaxes and her expression becomes one of pinched exhaustion. “What are you doing here, Eddie? Are you here for some kind of revenge? If that were the case, I would think you would have sought me out in a less conspicuous place.”

 

Revenge? Maybe. But that hadn’t been their priority tonight. More than anything Eddie was curious about what Golding might have been planning in retaliation for his escape, given that he'd made mincemeat of her underlings and lived to walk the streets again. Had she really given up on the idea or was she just trying to deflect?

 

“I haven’t decided. Honestly, I didn’t think I would run into anyone tonight.” He’s not sure why he goes for a more candid approach; perhaps it was the feeling of Venom primed and ready to strike at a moment’s provocation. Or maybe it was his instinct for being able to read people that told him Golding was just as uneasy with the situation as him.

 

His bare honesty elicits a surprising reaction as Golding muffles a snort of laughter. “You didn’t think you’d get caught? Eddie, there are cameras all over this gallery,” here she turns and gestures to one of the corners of the ceiling where he spots a telltale tiny reflective lens that had been invisible in the dark. “Scott’s been following your movements from the moment you came in through the window!”

 

That sends a spike of alarm through his bloodstream. If he’d been in sight this whole time, there was little doubt that Venom would be visible in some capacity or other on those cameras. He was three minutes into this confrontation and Golding potentially already had the upper hand.

 

As with many serious situations he is confronted with in his life, Eddie chooses to respond to this information with flippant sarcasm.

 

“Oh good, Scott’s here? Hi Scott!” And here he gives a tiny wave up at the corner camera. “For a second there I was worried that he’d been on that boat. You remember, the one you sent off to pitch me into the bay.”

 

“Yes, and if you’d had any sense, you would have accepted your continued existence as a sign to keep your head down and not draw attention. But instead, you decided to create a scene and draw a dangerous amount of attention to yourself and me.”

 

“You tried to kill me!”

 

“And obviously I didn’t do a very good job of it now did I? But I suppose that’s not my fault, I’m still trying to figure out who, or rather, _what_ I’m dealing with,” here she makes an agitated sweeping motion to indicate Eddie himself.

 

That makes him sweat a little. “What do you mean?” he hedges, playing dumb to trying and goad her into spilling just how much she’d gathered about Venom’s existence.

 

“What I mean, is that unless you’re the next Rasputin, there’s something else at play here. Tell me, are you one of those enhanced individuals?”

 

A noise of surprise turns into an aborted cough. That was not what he had expected Golding to ask. “A _what_ now?”

 

“Oh please, Eddie. Don’t play dumb with me, it’s not cute.” Even as she says this Golding’s demeanor turns affronted, as if she too couldn’t believe she was having this conversation right now. Even so, she must read his bewilderment as every bit as genuine as he means it because she goes on the elaborate with a huff, “an enhanced individual. Someone with abilities or what have you. I always thought of them as an East Coast problem, but I suppose we do have that one local giant guy.”

 

Right, Ant-Man. It was impossible to miss the exploits of a guy whose public claim to fame was getting involved in car chases that leave giant PEZ dispensers in their wake and wading into the bay at 50+ stories high. The two of them had stayed on the fringe of his radar for a while now; quietly looking after bystander safety and generally just assessing the situation from a prospective assistance standpoint.

 

But that was beside the point.

 

“Look, that’s none of your business,” and boy did that defensive tone sound like an admission of guilt. “No more talking in circles, Vivian. Am I really supposed to believe that you’d just so generously decided to give up and let me go after all the trouble you went through to send me to the bottom of the ocean?”

 

“Yes.  Believe it or not, you’re no longer my priority or problem. That’s why I suggest that if you’re here to kill me, you do it now.”

 

Eddie is stunned by this pronouncement. As much as he and Venom were rightly justified to exact their particular brand of justice, the situation sat just a bit too surreal.

 

Sensing his hesitation, Golding continues. “Or, if you would like, we can sit down and I can come clean. Truly this time.”

 

“Says the con artist with a taste for toxic refreshments,” he grumbles as he takes a seat, deliberately staying far away from the one he had previously occupied.

 

Golding chooses not to gratify him with a direct response rather than proceed with her own pre-composed argument. “The fact that you are still among the living has me in hot water with my boss. The fact that you were looking to get an interview with me in the first place was enough to surmise that you were sticking your nose into our business, and I was instructed that if you asked certain questions, ones that looked a little too deeply into the gallery’s more ‘private affairs’, that I was to see that you never had the opportunity to run your mouth.”

 

He stays silent, allowing Golding to spin her side of the events. He withholds comment and keeps his face carefully neutral. Sometimes, the best interviews were the ones where he didn’t even have to prompt the speaker at all.

 

“I never had anything personally against you, Eddie, but that hardly matters now. If my boss wants you out of the picture, he’ll take it up with someone else. I’m to meet with him soon and ‘discuss’ my poor handling of the situation. I’m dead. It’s all just a matter of time.”

 

Her tone is flippant but he can hear and see the stress the brims just beneath the surface. Despite a voice in his head (that carries an uncanny resemblance to Anne’s) telling him to not trust a word she says, he can’t help but see the logic in her narrative.

 

It made sense that Golding wouldn’t be operating an art forgery ring to the scale that she was, with works coming and going from her auction house and gallery by the hundreds on a monthly basis, without a support system. It also made sense that any organized art smuggling syndicate would also deal in a number of other things. It didn’t take a genius to see the truth in Golding’s position. She was just one small, local part of something much grimmer.

 

“Why tell me all this and not try to work something out with your boss? No doubt you got an eyeful of the crime scene your little clean up crew turned into. What makes you think I might not be the worse option of the two?” And yeah, ok, that came out a little overly menacing, but without Venom to act as a natural force of intimidation, he was trying his best.

 

Apparently, his bad-cop take didn’t fly too far because Golding fixes him with an unimpressed eye-roll. “Oh please. The fact that you’re sitting here listening to anything I have to say proves that you’re nowhere near as ruthless as the people I work for.”

 

“That’s why,” she continues, “I believe you and I might be able to see the value in coming to a pragmatic agreement. You pissed my boss off when you asked too many questions, but you made him furious when you drew police attention to him through the wholesale slaughter of his lackeys. The degrees of separation are getting shorter. Now I personally don’t care how you’re still alive, except for the fact that it now means I’m going to pay for it. And before you ask, there’s no point in running.”

 

He admits that its quite a premise, but not an impossible one. Considering the most convoluted criminal plot he’d found himself in lately involved the very real alien Symbiote currently living in his gut, he was a little more inclined to hear this one out. He silently confirmed that he was still following and for her to continue.

 

“My boss is the one who sanctions the violent eradication of overly interested parties, such as yourself. The one who orchestrates all the operations. Not just art.  He has his fingers in everything you can think of; drug smuggling, weapons dealing, the international black-market organ trade, human trafficking. The list goes on. You’re a journalist, Eddie, if you need proof, I have it. But I’m warning you right now; this isn’t the kind of guy that can be taken out with the written word. He’s got cops in his pocket and he’ll be sure to have you taken away and personally delivered to him before you can even think of publishing any of this.”

 

“Ok, he’s the worse of the two of you, I get it. So what do you propose we do about it, Ms. Golding?”

 

“Simple, you come to our meeting tomorrow. Whatever happens from there is up to you. I’m sure you’ve got some ideas.”

 

“And what do you get out of this?”

 

“In return, all I ask of you, Eddie, is that you don’t come back for me.”

 

The whole thing felt off. He stared at Golding and she stared right back, letting on no more than what she'd already told him. Clearly, she was betting that he would be her ticket to getting rid of her boss, and if the guy was guilty of even half the things she claimed, it would be irresponsible to turn away from what she was offering. But it couldn’t be that simple.

 

“That’s just it then? You let someone else take the fall and walk away?”

 

“Oh for God's sakes, are you really going to sit there and judge me like you haven’t got blood on your own hands? You think I want this? I just wanted to work with the art that I love; I never planned to get involved with all this! We can sit here and debate back and forth all night about whose actions are more justified, or we can work together to take down someone truly, indisputably evil!”

 

In the back of his mind, he could feel Venom’s silent unease at her words. As much as Eddie tried to insist to his other that there were good and bad people, the fact of the matter was that life was more nuanced. Golding was bad, she’d tried to kill him and she’d successfully killed others, there was no question of that as she’d admitted as much, and Eddie himself wasn’t so squeaky-clean.

 

He’d taken down the morally corrupt and the downright evil, sure. But there were also times when he’d been impatient some nights and, upon Venom’s request, had agreed to allow the Symbiote to snack on a few petty criminals. Those individuals hadn’t deserved what they got, but Eddie let it happen anyway, hyped up as he was with Venom out on the hunt. Even before the Symbiote came along he’d recklessly used others as a means to an end in his pursuit of justice, and it almost took losing everything to realize how dubious his tactics were.

 

At this point, he wasn’t even sure if he himself could live up to the ‘good guy’ standards that he had defined. Venom embraced the idea of doing good and helping the innocent lives of the city the two of them called home. But with Eddie as their moral compass, was he really helping or hindering the Symbiote in their desire to embody a force of good? He loved them, without a doubt, but sometimes, in the darkest corners of his own mind, Eddie is haunted by the thought that he might not be a good host for his other; that they deserved so much better than what he has to offer.

 

He and Golding are not alike, that much he knew. But they shared just enough in common that Eddie could at least understand where she had come from; forced to become impassive to death all as a matter of surviving in the business she found herself tangled in. It’s not so foreign a concept to him.

 

He reaches out to Venom, asking his other for their thoughts on the matter. The Symbiote mirrors Eddie’s conflicted emotions in many ways. But one detail in particular captured their attention; going along with Golding’s plan would mean that they’d be taking down at least one definitive bad guy.

 

He smiles softly at his other’s optimistic determination. Turning to Golding, having made up his mind, he asks, “So what’s the plan?”

 

* * *

It’s dusk when they meet at the warehouse; just late enough for other activity in the city to draw unwanted attention elsewhere and early enough still that the lookouts (outfitted in coveralls) at a glance might be assumed to be dock workers, transporting cargo shipments. It was a routine that all present seemed familiar with.

 

If a passerby were to look closely enough though, they might realize that a few of the ‘dock workers’ didn’t seem too concerned with concealing the heavy firearms they toted. One would then conclude that only a fool, upon recognizing such a threat, would venture forward to investigate, and having been sufficiently deterred, would promptly vacate the premises pretending as though nothing had happened.

 

Only the most reckless of individuals would continue forward, to undoubtedly find themselves on the receiving end of a couple dozen rounds of high caliber ammunition peppered liberally throughout their person. No one would throw away their lives so thoughtlessly.

 

* * *

Inside the warehouse, there is activity. Heavy shipping crates are unloaded from trucks and organized and stacked in the various sections of the building. The people work mutedly, stowing the contraband away with practiced movements, all their curious ears tuned in to the thick tension of their immediate superior, a man making his way toward Vivian Golding with a casual quality.

 

He stands and regards Golding with an expectant look, waiting half a second before remarking, “you said you had something to change my mind? What would that be?”

 

Golding is just as relaxed, almost bored by the estimations of some around her. How she can be so calm when, for all intents and purposes, her number was up? She must have a pretty substantial bargaining chip.

 

“Hello to you too, Curtis,” Golding remarks dryly. “It would be the very cause of all this mess. Eddie Brock hasn’t said a word about our business and he never will. You have my guarantee.”

 

Curtis cocks an eyebrow as a slim smirk tugs at his lips. “And how can you be so sure of that? Last our information checked he was still very much alive and kicking. You can’t claim shit, Golding; you had him, sure, but then you got sloppy.”

 

“I _can_ back up my guarantee because he’ll be here tonight.”

 

That causes a few of the workers to share glances out of the corner of their eyes.

 

If anything, their boss looks even more incredulous. “And how’d you go about arranging that, huh? Did you drop him an anonymous tip? Sweet talk him?”

 

“As a matter of fact, all I had to do was tell him the truth. Or at least, as much of it as he needed to know. As someone whose profession involves deception rather than just strong-arming others into doing what is wanted, I find that people will believe anything so long as it fits nice and neatly into their expectations of the world. After all, a good lie is mostly truth.”

 

“Jesus, you talk too much. Now I know why they keep you over here on the West Coast with all the other pretentious shit-heads.”

 

“Not for long.”

 

“What was that?”

 

Golding meets the eyes of the man in front of her and smiles. “I said it shouldn’t be too long. He should be here soon. If your people do their jobs correctly, Brock shouldn’t even make it a hundred yards.”

 

Curtis scoffs agitatedly, “unlike you, they know how to do their jobs right the first time. You’re lucky I know how to kiss up, or this whole thing would have blown up on you sooner. I know how to smooth things over with the boss—“

 

At just that moment, muffled shouting is heard from outside. A commotion of sorts takes place before the telltale sounds of rapid bursts of gunfire. The workers all around the warehouse have paused in their activity, listening intently to the violent patterns of shots echoing off the exterior walls.

 

It is silent.

 

After some minutes, a man runs from the side loading dock doors and up to Curtis. They exchange a couple of quick words before the messenger nods and exits. Curtis scans the crowd of expectant faces around him before growling at them to get back to work. He looks visibly annoyed by the knowing smile on Golding’s face.

 

Golding schools her features back to neutral as a group of men enters from outside, between them they half-haul, half-drag a form along the ground before depositing the disheveled burden haphazardly onto the concrete between them.  A tense silence hangs over the group before Curtis grows frustrated and kicks the body until it rolls over and allows them all to make of what they will of what once was Eddie Brock.

 

The body is blood-smeared and dirt clots cling where he had presumably fallen to the ground and been unceremoniously dragged. His clothes are pockmarked and torn ragged with bullet entry points; the dark fabric just barely concealing the worst of the gore riddled meat beneath. From somewhere nearby, someone whispers a few curses in a strained tone.

 

“Want to check his pulse?” Golding offers casually as she watches the face of the man in front of her rather than look at the one at her feet.

 

“That’s sick even for you, Vivian.”

 

“I wouldn’t want you to accuse me of doing things wrong all over again.”

 

With a hard glare, Curtis motions one of his men toward the body. The man kneels down and grasps the limp arm before him. With clinical movements, the man checks the pulse point at the wrist for a few seconds before maneuvering to the point at the side of the neck. The air in the warehouse is thick with the focus of everyone’s attention. Even if the answer is expected, the “he’s dead, sir” still drives a number of just audible exhales from the surrounding workers.

 

Curtis himself seems to let out a held breath. “Alright, Golding, given that this little mishap was corrected, I don’t see any need for any of this to leave here tonight. Don’t let this happen again.”

 

“It won’t,” she says solemnly.

 

“Good.” With a sharp gesture toward the corpse, he snaps, “Get this thing out of here.”

 

“Wait a minute, somethings not right here,” calls the man still kneeling beside the body. With unsure movements, the man probes at the tattered remains of the shirt, an action that elicits a series of noises of disapproval and disgust from the gathered group. “No, seriously, shut up, this isn’t right.”

 

“The fuck are you talking about?  It’s dead, get it out of here and clean up this mess!” Curtis is growing visibly more agitated by the moment.

 

“But look!” The man’s hands quest with increasingly frantic motions over the body’s torso. “There’s a whole mess of blood and holes in his clothes, sure, but I’m not seeing any bullet holes _in_ him!”

 

In seconds, the ragged edges of the shirt _reel back_ and in one clean motion come down with needle-sharp teeth and bear-trap _snap_ of severed bones and muscle.

 

They all have but a moment to register the horror of the man, screaming as the squirting stumps of his elbows are held aloft before all hell breaks loose.

 

A cacophony of shrieks and the tattoo of ricocheting bullet rounds drown out the reverberating noises of amusement that pitch through Venom’s throat, their form flowing in relaxed movements up Eddie’s once prone form. A purr of delight is let loose just before they leap into the fray; promptly catching one of the gunmen between bloodstained jaws.

 

**_That was fun, Eddie. Should do it more often._ **

_Yeah, I don’t think so. Even if you didn’t heal me up right away, those bullets fucking hurt! This stint better satisfy you for at least two weeks, otherwise, I don’t think it’d be worth the blood loss._

****

As Venom’s jaw unhinges, allowing them to choke down one assailant whole, head first, Eddie feels a dizzying rush as his anemic state rights itself to normal levels. **_Happy?_**

 

_Much better, love, thank you._

 

With a happy trill they continue forward, ripping through anyone stupid enough to face off against them.

 

At this point in the fight, having partially or completely maimed, consumed, and killed about half of the guards in the immediate area, most of the other personnel had fled.

 

This, unfortunately, included their main target, the guy Golding identified as Curtis Low, her boss and the apparent head of an international crime syndicate. Eddie had watched, through Venom’s hidden sight, as the man had stood over the two of them, unable to even look at Eddie’s mangled corpse.

 

**_And after all the effort we put in to make our performance authentic!_ **

 

_Some people just can’t appreciate art, love._

 

 **Uncultured swine!** The Symbiote snarls aloud as they spot the subject of their ire running frantically into the depths of the warehouse, rather than to the safety of the open loading dock doors as many others had.

 

Rather than thread through the maze of aisles of boxes and crates, Venom scales the stacks. This vertical landscape of nooks and crannies serves to disorient their prey while they traverse the dark with a giddy satisfaction. They make sure their nimble movements produce just enough noise to keep their target moving in a panic. Until, at last, there is a dead end.

 

 **Tough break, boss** , Venom goads menacingly from the shadows. Eddie rolls his eyes internally. He can hear the Symbiote just barely keeping it together, rather than crack and laugh openly at the pathetic sight of the man before them.

 

Curtis, of course, didn’t catch that memo if the steadily growing piss stain at his crotch was anything to go by. The man is in tears.

 

“Lo-look, I don’t know what that witch told you, but I’m not your guy! I swear to God, she’s playing you!”

 

Venom cocks their head to the side like a demonic spaniel, feigning incomprehension.

 

**Oh? Last we checked, it was you who wanted our corpse brought before you like some kind of trophy.**

 

The man is sobbing now, shaking his head in denial as the inevitability of this encounter's outcome dawns on him. “It’s not like that! I’m just a cog in this machine, just like Golding!”

 

A frown presses deep into Eddie’s lips, mirrored onto Venom’s own outward features.

 

Their paired hesitation emboldened the man, however, as with quick shaky movements a hand dives into his jacket and withdraws a gun, firing shot after useless shot at them.

 

Venom allows their amusement at this action to temporarily override a growing disquiet within both Symbiote and host. They stand and watch as the man continues to riddle their mass with bullets before the _click_ of empty rounds ticks through the ringing air.

 

**Our turn.**

 

And with that, a surge of black whips forward, puncturing the concrete wall before them with the force of their embrace; allowing the body of their prey to slump as the last flash of a horrified visage is crushed between serrated teeth.

 

* * *

 

“She played you.”

 

Eddie is not ready for this conversation, early as it is. Dan glides forward and offers him a mug of coffee, perhaps to counterbalance Anne’s blatant lack of sympathy for his sleep-deprived state. He thanks the man profusely before taking a long sip, half out of a desperate need for the substance and half to not meeting Anne’s eyes.

 

Though, before long the silence becomes too oppressive, even for his tactics of avoidance. He clears his throat of morning phlegm and replies with a sheepish, “Yeah, I’ve gathered.”

 

In silence, they watch as the small snake-like form Venom manifests from Eddie's shoulder grabs a few sugar cubes from a jar on the kitchen counter and one by one administers them to Eddie’s coffee before lethargically lapping up the sweetened liquid with a tiny tongue.

 

“I looked up your guy, Curtis Low? He’s on a number of watch lists, or at least he was. Same stuff Golding accused him of, smuggling contraband and drugs, sometimes more. The thing is, he was never convicted of anything. Not successfully.”

 

Eddie considered this. Golding had told the truth, or at least as much of it as Eddie needed to hear to side with her. “So I’ve created a power vacuum,” he concludes at length.

 

“More like, you took out Golding's immediate superior, allowing her a nice comfortable jump in rank without having to do anything.”

 

Dan, having assessed the situation, places another mug of coffee in front of Eddie, along with a plate of eggs and bacon. Seeing this, Venom helps themself to nibble sedately at one of the crunchy slices of meat.

 

Eddie remembers waking earlier that morning, sick with building anxiety. They followed his hunch, wrapped in Venom’s hulking mass as they maneuvered agilely through the waking city to stoop down upon the rooftop just across the street from Golding Auction Gallery.

The place was deserted, and not in the sense that it was too early to have opened its door, but rather it was empty.

 

They ventured closer and peered in the windows. Everything was gone.

 

In the course of one night, the whole gallery, the art, artifacts, displays, furniture, everything had been spirited away, leaving behind an empty building and a growing unease. He had promised Golding that he wouldn’t pursue her, but this just served to feed the feeling in Eddie’s gut that he might have made the wrong decision.

 

It was too late now.

 

He’d gone to Anne and Dan straight after and confessed the whole thing. Up until that point, he’d only given them the details they’d need in case something happened, for their own safety’s sake if nothing else. Early as it was, Anne told him to go catch some sleep on the couch while she did some digging.

 

Now he had to face the reality of his impulsive actions once more. For what it was worth, Anne didn’t seem too pissed at him for the stunt he’d pulled, and if the information she’d pulled up on Curtis Low was anything to go by, the guy was a pretty contemptible scumbag regardless of his connection to Golding.

 

Most importantly of all, Venom regarded his emotional conflict as valid but ultimately overwrought.

 

**Your mistakes don’t make you any less of a good guy in our eyes, Eddie.**

 

He didn’t know just how much he’d needed to hear those words spoken aloud until he did.

 

* * *

A couple of weeks later, Eddie, unable to let things quite go, makes a discovery. Apparently, a Ms. Valerie Silverstein was suddenly making a splash in the New York art world. Her new appearance on the scene, rather than a detriment, seemed to breathe a new air of life into the auction trade. How many of those art pieces were clever forgeries, no one offered to speculate.

 

Coincidentally, the same day he’d made this discovery, a package arrived for him, that so happened to be postmarked from an innocuous location in New Jersey.

 

Eddie had a number of people he knew from back east, but judging from the rather flat-rectangular shape of the parcel and the timing, he had a feeling it wasn’t a care-package from any former friends. He opened it with caution, and his suspicions were confirmed.

 

It was a painting. A still life that featured a number of colorful flowers, their stems bending in a variety of directions, a collection of bright berries on the corner of a table, and, curiously enough, a stack of playing cards propped up for the viewer to admire. But most prominently of all, in the middle of the canvas hung a dead bird, strung up by one leg from a nob on the wall with a bow; dangling down, headfirst as the focal point of the picture.

 

A quick google search revealed it to be Jan Antonín Vocásek’s “Still Life with Woodpecker”, which really solidified it as just clever forgery of said painting as the original looked to be accounted for.

 

Why would Golding send him this? As a bizarre thank you? As a threat? A reminder of his promise?

 

Regardless, even for a replica he could admire the time and attention that went into the piece. With Venom’s help he hung the painting up on a wall in their apartment. The place still looked a bit dingy, but the two of them agreed that the painting did lend the space a certain air of sophistication, even if it was oddly morbid in subject.

 

In the end, Venom and Eddie decided together to interpret this strange gift as a macabre celebration of life, and how, despite the best efforts of their growing number of adversaries, the two of them hadn't given up yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the conclusion to this little 3-chapter mini story thing. I hope it lived up to expectations. I know the original characters in this one hogged the spotlight for a little too long, but I really wanted to explore Golding a little more before saying goodbye.
> 
> Final thoughts: 1.) The tactic Eddie and Venom used in this chapter to disguise Eddie's pulse is one that is used a couple of times in the early Spider-Man comics. The idea being that the symbiote covers Eddie's skin in a thin, transparent layer of itself and adjusts his appearance to that of post mortem. Hence, they're playing possum. 2.) Having referenced him, I now feel the urge to perhaps have a chapter where Ant-man makes an appearance. Let me know if you guys would want something like that. 3.) I couldn't help throwing a reference to 1982's "The Thing". 4.) If you're curious, the painting referenced is "Still Life with Woodpecker, Flowers, Strawberries, Cards and Glass" by Jan Antonín Vocásek.
> 
> Please, feel free to let me know your thoughts, comments, questions, or suggestions! I know I don't always get around to replying back to everyone, but I'm trying to get past my anxious social tendencies and open up to all you lovely people. Thank you all for being so wonderful and patient!


	6. A Microbial Interlude

They notice the change that evening.

 

Having just shared a couple of pizzas, Eddie’s body was in the usual process of digestion and Venom was enjoying the mild lethargy that the late hour and their host’s full stomach provided the both of them. Eddie was typing up some notes in regards to an article he was outlining; nothing pressing as for once the stress of a time crunch to meet a deadline was not in effect. Venom soaked in the peace of the moment.

 

Or they would have if Eddie wasn’t clearing his throat every couple of minutes.

 

Still, even so, they were not alarmed. Humans were weird and frequently developed strange habits in response to variables in their environment; sometimes even without their knowledge.

 

After a little while of this, however, Eddie feels the need to go to the kitchen and get a glass of water. The liquid alleviates the irritation in his throat only minimally, serving more to draw attention to building congestion.

 

“Hey, V? I wasn’t allergic to anything on those pizzas, was I?”

 

Venom considers this and makes a cursory sweep of their host’s systems.

 

**There is no buildup of histamine that we can detect, Eddie.**

 

They pause, looking again at the area in question. The throat certainly seems more swollen than usual and the amount of mucus being manufactured by the surrounding cells is concerning.

 

 **Something’s wrong** , is their eventual prognosis.

 

“Well shit.”

* * *

 

 

Venom has come to the unequivocal determination that Eddie is sick.

 

When the alarm went off that morning, their host’s response was to wheeze weakly are curl further into the cocoon of bed. Any attempts on Venom’s part to rouse their human ended in coughing fits and feeble defensive maneuvers that included a lot of swatting at Venom’s face and burrowing under pillows.

 

Perhaps coffee would help. Eddie never did seemed particularly coherent in the morning without the addictive substance.

 

With this thought in mind, the Symbiote goes through the practiced motions of preparing a mug of the bitter liquid and brings it over to their host’s nightstand.

 

**Coffee, Eddie.**

 

The human perks up slightly, a good sign. Venom practically beams with pride as their disgruntled host reaches for the steaming cup, (they are an excellent provider for their human, how would he survive without them?) when their genial disposition turns to one of abject horror as Eddie sets the mug back down, untouched, with an expression of aversion.

 

Clearly, Eddie is dying.

 

Their panic must bleed through their connection to their host, as a weak cough gives way to the pleading request, _Can you get me some water, V?_

 

Venom wastes no time in whisking away the offending mug of coffee and replacing it with the requested water. Still, the tiny sips their host takes this time are hardly a satisfactory alternative.

 

They scope out the battleground of the infection their human’s sinuses and pharynx have become against an invading force of viral assailants. On the cellular level, white blood cells are fighting savagely in an all-out onslaught that leaves Eddie’s nasal passage and throat swollen and stuffed up. A wet gurgling from the lungs reveals a concerning buildup of excess fluids. The immune system was engaged in an all-out assault.

 

Venom studies the movements of the white blood cells for a moment; observing their methods of warfare before attempting to mimic their actions against the viral scourge by preventing replication. Unfortunate, they were a little over overzealous in this, and only after registering an over-abundance of mucus and pus build-up did it occur to them that their attempts to help might have just hurt Eddie even further. The coughing fit this triggered was violent to the point of almost tripping the gag reflex.

 

Stimulating and accelerating the regrowth of human cells had always been on a bit of a learning curve for the Symbiote. They admit that maintaining the health of the first few hosts that they’d taken up residence in hadn’t been their biggest priority, and thus they hadn’t paid much mind when various bodily systems had given off frantic signs of having been compromised.

 

Under the pressure of their peers and the duress of those first few months within the Life Foundation, they had used up their hosts ruthlessly at first; only later consciously making effort to maintain homeostasis and attempting symbiosis as it became clear that they wouldn’t be escaping the hellish lab quite as quickly as they’d hoped.

 

Eddie had been the incentive they’d needed to really start giving a shit.

 

No, more than that. Eddie was everything they had ever hoped to dream of in a bond. The two of them weren’t just using the other to an eventual ends, as was the usual case for much of their kind, but with Eddie there was a true partnership; beyond even that, love.

 

At first, Venom hadn’t dared to believe that what their host harbored inside them was an affection the Symbiote had previously never felt before. Venom handled these emotions as one would something precious but also fragile and ephemeral, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Eddie to decide that he wanted his previous existence back. But through time and again, the human not only demonstrated that he himself wanted their symbiosis, but that he also shared many of Venom’s own insecurities about possible rejection.

 

But again, they evolved beyond that. They helped each other to grow and to heal. Now their lives didn’t hinge on the desperate need for the other so much as the more healthy understanding that the two of them _could_ live without the other, but that they both _wanted_ to live together.

 

Now, looking back on their lonely existence before coming to Earth, it was hard to imagine a life and future without Eddie in it.

 

And that’s why they would protect him at all costs.

 

Even so, in the beginning, the anxious journalist’s body had come with its own challenges. They’d only really just begun to get the hang of healing the damage they’d inflicted, half out of necessity, half our of a cynical belief that the harmonious beginnings of symbiosis that had begun between them would not last, when Anne had seen to their ejection.

 

Now they did everything they could, within the realm of their capabilities, to see to Eddie’s health, just as a true symbiotic relationship should entail. But also because, one way or another, with even as compatible as two alien organisms can be, the pair of them were very accident-prone. Thus Venom had taken to educating themself about the intricacies of the human body; an education that had saved Eddie’s life on more than one occasion.

 

That said, there was something about restoring dead tissue and repairing organ damage that made one overestimate one’s own abilities. Like right now.

 

How could all of this have happened in just the few hours they had rested in stasis within their sleeping host? Eddie had been perfectly healthy last night with the exception of a small cough, and now he was riddled with pestilence!

 

_It’s just a cold, love._

 

**Silence, Eddie. Conserve your strength.**

 

(Never mind that the words their host had projected had been entirely within the confines of their shared mindscape, the principle still applied!)

 

With one set of tendrils, Venom cradles their dying host’s head protectively, petting his hair with soothing motions, while another set of tendrils shoot out, and with all the volatile momentum of a frog snatching a fly from the air, reel in Eddie’s cell phone. They almost misdial a couple of unrelated numbers in Eddie’s contacts before finally finding and connecting with Dan’s.

 

 _“Hello? Eddie? I’m a little busy at the moment and can’t talk long, but what’s up?”_ Dan’s voice sounds slightly rushed through the speakerphone function, but nonetheless amiable.

**Dan, Eddie has a cold.** The graveness in their voice is undercut by a weak snort of laughter from the subject of discussion.

 

“Jesus, V, you make it sound like I’m on my deathbed.”

 

 **Eddie won’t take the situation seriously and we don’t know what to do!** Venom says, appealing to the doctor rather than addressing their undoubtedly delusional host.

 

_“Well, if it’s a cold, then it would be best for Eddie to stay hydrated and get plenty of sleep. What’s his temperature right now?”_

 

**Don’t know. Eddie, what is your temperature right now?**

 

“Yeah, sure, let me just check with my internal thermometer. Oh, would you look at that? Says normal.”

 

They would roll their eyes at their host’s snark (if they had such biologically inefficient rotating singular eyeballs to do so with).

 

_“Ok, that’s good. Keep an eye on his temperature. If it seems like he has a fever, then you may be dealing with the flu or something with the same symptom patterns.”_

 

“Guys, I really don’t think it’s all that serious.”

 

_“And you’re probably right. But it doesn’t hurt to have Venom monitor the situation, just in case. For what it’s worth Venom, if he’s still got his humor, he’s probably not dying.”_

 

**We have witnessed Eddie attempt jokes while having nearly been disemboweled by an enemy.**

 

_“Wha—“_

 

From the depth of pillows and their inky mass comes a wheezy fit of giggles. “I would have told him how I felt about the situation, _but I didn’t have the guts!_ ” This last part has the invalid human laugh/coughing hard enough for Venom to wonder briefly if Eddie might hack up a lung.

 

 _“Why didn’t you guys call me when that happened?”_ Dan asks with noticeably less enthusiasm.

 

**There was no need; we healed Eddie up just fine then.**

 

There is silence over the phone and Venom pokes at the screen after a few moments to be sure that the call was still connected.

 

 _“Ok,”_ Dan says with a voice that Venom had learned to recognize (from Eddie) as the ‘what the fuck have I gotten myself into this time?’ intonation.

_“Call me if either of you feel like the situation gets urgent. I’m actually out of town at a conference right now, but Anne should be around. I’ll catch her up, just in case the two of you might need some hands-on help. Talk to you later.”_

 

Venom bids the doctor goodbye and turns back to their bedraggled, bedridden host.

 

Dan hadn’t seemed terribly concerned (at least, not about the cold), so maybe the current situation wasn’t the medical crisis they had first feared. Sure, Eddie’s insides looked a horrific mess, as the dramatic viral war for their host’s respiratory system continued to wage, but on the outside their human looked about as terminal as a mopey kitten.

 

Perhaps, like with every other aspect of living inside an alien body, they would learn to take this in stride as well.

* * *

 

 

Things were becoming unbearable.

 

In the past 48 hours since coming to terms with Eddie’s current condition, Venom discovered that trying to care for an indisposed host was quickly becoming one of the most harrowing challenges they'd faced since coming to Earth.

 

In fact, as they ponder on this observation, staring into the middle distance at their own reflection interposed against the view of a bowl of chicken soup rotating in the microwave, a dull _thud_ comes from behind them.

 

“ _Veeeee_ ,” Eddie whines from where he has slumped off the couch and onto the floor, “where’d all the tissues go? My nose is a fucking faucet.” But with all the congestion muffing his words, that last part comes out more as ‘duckn dauced’.

 

Venom shakes off their own fatigue (an unfortunate side effect of the empathetic side of the pair’s bond) and looks through the dwindling supplies spread out on the coffee table. It would appear that they were out of tissues, along with the few tablets of cold medicine that had been stashed away in the nearly bare apartment cupboards.

 

**We will need to go to the store and get some.**

 

This proclamation earned them a long-winded moan of dissent from their miserable host.

 

“Don’t want to go to the store,” is what Venom translated from the muffled words spoken into the wood floor.

 

**Then _I_ will drive.**

 

This had been a growing trend between the two of them, and a testament to how trusting their relationship had become. More often of late, between holding down a double life of freelance investigative journalism and vigilantism, Eddie would run himself ragged and be unable to navigate even the most basic human tasks in the hours following their escapades.

 

So, in response, Venom had tentatively offered to take over. While Eddie slept, generally rested, or sometimes lapsed into a dissociative state, Venom would assume the ‘driver’s seat’ and guide the two of them through basic tasks, like walking home, picking up groceries, grabbing the mail, or just generally getting them both out of the house to walk around and enjoy the sunshine.

 

Eddie had endearingly called it Venom’s ‘human practice’, or ‘act natural’, as the latter phrase had become their mantra on such expeditions. While the act of piloting Eddie’s body was certainly novel, they quickly found that they had no real desire to attempt the performance any more often than on the occasional outing. Human’s had far too many arbitrary rules of conduct; as they’d found out on one particular evening when they’d almost gotten in trouble with the authorities upon apprehending a purse snatcher by breaking the offender’s arm.

 

Still, the tradeoff was typically enjoyable for Symbiote and host both; Eddie gets to take a break and Venom gets to satiate their curiosity and explore the city’s tiny microcosm of Earth society and culture.

 

One minor problem of ‘driving’ while Eddie slept was that Venom was entirely without directions. For instance, staring down the contents of the ‘cold & flu relief’ aisle at Mrs. Chen’s convenience store was providing no clues as to how to proceed.

 

Boxes and bottles in a variety of shapes and bright eye-catching colors advertised the easing of aches and pains, while others touted the ability to fend off sore throats and congestion, still more claimed their best features lay in their capabilities to combat runny noses and sneezing. Where should they even begin?

 

At random Venom has Eddie’s hand snap up a box; eye’s rapidly scanning the paragraphs and paragraphs of information crammed on the back of the box in 2 point font. They can’t contain an audible gasp of horror as they spy the warnings and possible side effects.

 

Why would any being voluntarily poison themselves with such substances when the trade-off for relief from the sniffles was the possibility of _heart attack or stroke?_

 

“Hello, Venom. Need help?”

 

Venom starts slightly at being directly addressed through their human host’s guise. Standing casually at the opening of the aisle is Mrs. Chen; hardly paying them much mind other than a glance out of the corner of her eye as she restocks a nearby display.

 

**How did you know it was us?**

 

Of course, if the question itself wasn’t a dead giveaway, speaking aloud in a significantly deeper vocal register than Eddie’s normal range was a pretty big clue. Venom hadn’t quite worked out how to imitate their host’s tone or natural cadence, despite spending countless hours listening to Eddie speak both audibly and mentally to them.

 

Mrs. Chen looked unimpressed with their bewilderment, which was entirely unfair of her given that Venom had taken trips to her store before in the past without having been called out. Instead of answering them aloud, she grabs a tin of cookies off a nearby shelf and holds the metallic reflective surface up to them. Eddie’s puffy, exhausted face peers back at them, but with very noticeable, entirely black eyes; the well of inky darkness stretching far past the pupils and engulfing both iris and sclera.

 

Oops.

 

They correct this discrepancy quickly, thankful that it appeared that the only one around was the shop proprietor herself. Normally they wouldn’t have made such an amateur mistake, but with the illness dulling all of Eddie’s senses, navigating the world through his lackluster vision had been as frustrating as walking in a fog.

 

Grasping the opportunity to speak freely with someone who both knew of and was relatively comfortable with their existence, Venom takes up the proffered help.

 

**Don’t know which one to get. They all sound...dubious.**

 

Without missing a beat, Mrs. Chen reaches past them and grabs a box on the bottom shelf and drops it into their hands. “Get this one. All the rest of this brand-name shit is overpriced and worthless.”

 

**Why do you sell them then?**

 

She makes a gesture of dismissal and mutters a few words in a language Eddie (and thus by extension, Venom) doesn’t understand.

 

“Some people want to pay more for a name they know. If they want to throw away their money on something with the same or inferior ingredients as this,” and here she taps the box they hold for emphasis, “it just brings me more business.”

 

Humans are so very strange.

 

They go to the checkout counter, grabbing tissues on the way, and fish out Eddie’s wallet (examining the flimsy paper currency notes with a critical eye in order to parse their value), when Mrs. Chen comes around the counter and sets down a modest bag of oranges and the same tin of cookies that she’d held up earlier.

 

“Eddie could use the vitamins,” she says by way of explanation for the oranges, “I’ve seen what the two of you come in here and grab all the time. I don’t care how superhuman you are, Eddie can’t live on fried foods.”

 

That was fair. They hadn’t exactly encouraged their host to seek out plant based food items in a while (beyond the occasional bell pepper topping on a pizza) and they couldn’t ignore the possibility that their negligence may have resulted in Eddie’s current compromised immune system.

 

They go to point out that the cookies carried none of the nutritional value of the oranges, but she cuts them off, “They’re for you, on the house. Just don’t let Eddie have any.”

 

They’re so touched by this gesture of kindness that they resist the urge to point out that their own form lacked an kind of digestive system, and thus they relied entirely on Eddie’s own body to process nutrients. Instead, they settle on a simple, **Thank you.**

* * *

 

 

Even if Venom cannot directly participate in their host’s fight against the vile rhinovirus, the accelerated healing they offer Eddie naturally helps.

 

Within the next few days, Eddie is back on his feet, if still slumping and lethargically shuffling said feet. Regardless, progress has been made.

 

Anne dropped in this particular evening after a couple of days worth of pathetic pleading on Eddie’s part, asking if she would be so kind as to make him some chicken soup.

 

“The real stuff,” he asserted, as much as one can make assertions through a sickly groan, “not that salty shit from a can.”

 

Venom chose not to take offense at this request, understanding that the reproach lay on the soup and not themself; quick microwavable meals were all they could prepare for their host at the moment. Hunting was out of the question and anything heavier than a mild broth with some meat floating apathetically in it would upset Eddie’s tender stomach.

 

So when Anne arrived on the scene with bags of ingredients and two whole chickens fresh from the market, it felt like a godsend.

 

They assisted Anne were they can, fascinated with the process of gutting and cleaning the chickens (of which the heads and other such undesired offal made a tasty snack for them). During this process, Eddie sits propped up at the countertop and watches, gentle amusement and the beginnings of returning contentment pass with a pleasant, effervescent sensation through their bond.

 

It takes some time for the soup the be ready, but when it is, there’s enough to for several containers worth of leftovers to pack away in the fridge. The results, Venom can agree, are vastly superior to the sad canned soups both Symbiote and host had been subsisting on for what felt like a torturous short eternity.

 

They laugh and carry on relaxed conversation for much of the meal until Eddie, not entirely recovered yet, excuses himself to the couch to drape himself in blankets and nap, the act of eating with company having apparently expended his energy.

 

“So, how’s the poor guy _really_ been? I haven’t seen him this sick in a long time,” Anne remarks quietly, concern creating a slight crease at her brow.

 

**We will survive this, just as we have all the hardships before this.**

 

“That’s not really—I don’t doubt that you both will get through this, V. That was never in question. It’s just…hard seeing him this way, after everything.”

 

Perhaps, they muse, she was worried for Eddie’s safety under Venom’s care. A valid concern by all accounts given the pair’s not infrequent propensity to drop in on the Weying-Lewis household fresh from some blood-splatted misadventure. The two of them hadn’t wanted to trouble the human couple with the sordid details of what they did in their self-appointed mission to uproot corruption and crime in the city, but that just made it even worse when things did come to light.

 

**You don’t have to worry, Anne. We will protect him.**

 

From the look on Anne’s face, they seem to have hit (at least partially) on the matter. At any rate, she doesn’t make any move to deny what they ascertained as the underlying meaning behind her words.

 

“I know you will, V, but I can’t help but worry. And not just about him. I worry about you too.”

 

 _Oh_.

 

They are embarrassed and a little ashamed by how much this surprises them. Logically they knew that Anne cared about them, the two of them had come to an understanding when they had put their differences aside and merged in order to save Eddie from Drake. She also wouldn’t have consoled Eddie as she did when under the impression that Venom had perished in the rocket explosion, nor would she have seemingly expressed genuine happiness when it came out that the Symbiote had survived (only after thoroughly chewing out both host and Symbiote for concealing the fact in the first place, of course).

 

It just maybe hadn’t occurred to them that Anne worried about their wellbeing.

 

 **Oh** , they very eloquently say aloud, and then mentally smack themselves in the face.

 

“Venom, you know I do care about you, don’t you? It’s not just Eddie that Dan and I are worried about all the time.”

 

For the life of them, they cannot think of anything to say that isn't a repeat of the aforementioned _Oh_.

 

“Are you _serious_? I swear you’re about as emotionally stunted as the man you’re attached to.”

 

They bite back the urge to make a remark of indignation at this, not wanting prove Anne’s very point. Instead, feeling vulnerable and under a proverbial microscope at the moment, they admit their feelings.

 

**We— _I_ thought your concern would be for Eddie. He is very soft and mortal, and despite our best efforts, he sometimes gets hurt.**

 

Their voice sounds small, even to them. It scares them to be honest like this, about their doubts in their own abilities to protect the one they love so desperately. A small, irrational part of them wonders whether confessing all this to Anne will prompt the woman to try and separate the pair again. An even smaller part of them, one that they are terrified of, points out that Eddie would probably be much better off without Venom as the cause of so much strife and pain in his life.

 

**We didn’t think anyone but Eddie cared about us.**

 

“ _Oh, V_ ,” Anne’s face warps into one of sadness. She reaches out a hand, offering, and they meet the gesture by partially coiling their mass about her wrist. It’s not really a hug, but the gentle pressure they exert as they wrap up and around their friend’s arm bears the same significance. “I _absolutely_ care about you, more than you can imagine. Eddie and I have a history, sure, but if you hadn’t arrived when you did, if you weren’t such a wonderful friend and support system, and the _love of my best friend’s life_ , where would any of us be right now? You are loved, and not just by Eddie.”

 

The only thing they can think to respond with is to coil tighter. One of their eye’s peers over to the sofa where Eddie is sprawled, oblivious to the emotional conversation happening right over his head. They spy a small puddle of drool forming just under where their host’s mouth is smooshed into the cushions.

 

They adore him so much.

 

**Thank you, Anne.**

They adore Eddie, but he no longer had to be the sole provider of purpose for their new life here. He no longer has to be Venom’s sole support in a once bleak existence. They have people who care about them. The both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right, I snuck in a fluffy chapter while no one was watching! I decided to have a little non-lethal interlude after concluding the last bunch of chapters. I haven't really explored Venom's point of view in-depth (other than in one other fic), so this was a nice change of pace. I think I often inadvertently default to Eddie's POV, so it was definitely about time to shake things up. I think I'll come back to Venom's perspective more often from now on.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed! It felt nice to have a little bit of a fluffy chapter, but next time the fic will be back to form with all the macabre shenanigans you've come to expect.


	7. Dismemberment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by senorito who suggested a scenario in which Eddie survives losing and then regrowing a limb.

An unfortunate aspect of becoming a vigilante, in a city where other civilian crime-fighters were few and far between, was that criminals took notice rather quickly.

 

In New York, it might take years for an enhanced individual to establish themselves in the hectic dichotomy of heroes and villains that populated the Eastern Seaboard. As such, many smaller stakes criminals breathed a sigh of relief knowing they could get away with their illegal activities undisturbed. They rest easy in their beds at night knowing the Avengers had bigger fish to fry than a couple of thieves and dealers in black market goods, and gang leaders and mafia bosses anywhere west of the Mississippi hardly had to worry about the likes of Spider-Man or The Punisher kicking in their operation.

 

So, when Eddie and Venom decided there was nothing the two of them would love more than to spend their lives together and fight corruption in San Francisco, (both through the subtleties of the written word and the not so subtle act of patrolling city blocks like the worlds most lethal street sweeper), maintaining a low profile was a bit of a challenge, if not wildly impractical.

 

Honestly, they might have tried harder in the area of subterfuge, except that a number recent of videos on the Internet depicted a man on a motorcycle, ricocheting around the streets at top speed at the whims of some unknown black slime, pursued by exploding drones. That, and a pretty convincing video of a goo monster forming up off the ground and biting a man’s head off in the middle of an intersection.

 

Luckily, as was the case with most things deemed paranormal in this modern age, the quality of both recordings were just shitty enough that no one knew exactly who or what they were looking at. The videos were quickly written off as fakes by the general populous (despite the very real infrastructure damage said exploding drones caused) and were relegated to the far reaches of Internet obscurity within days.

 

But the people of San Francisco knew.

 

At first, it was blurry screen grabs of Venom from the video coloring the top pages of tabloids, alongside such reputable news articles as ‘Elvis Presley sighted in a diner just west of Tucson’ and ‘Woman petitions court for the right to marry ghost’.

 

As the months go by, however, they notice that their nocturnal presence has generated a tiny excited buzz among the people.

 

Every now and again, an article in the paper will make some small speculation about the identity of San Francisco’s lethal protector, or the police will be quoted as attributing some crime scene or another to their work. The latter were typically correct on such assumptions (as Venom had a tendency to be a messy eater), but the former was hilariously off track; guessing they were anything from a rogue assassin with ties to the CIA to a government experiment escaped from Area 51.

 

One thing that became apparent was that high and low, the criminals of San Francisco had taken notice of their work.  Thieves, black market dealers, gang leaders, and mafia bosses alike all hurriedly began accumulating every bit of speculation and information (accurate or otherwise) they could find on the new (anti)hero in town.

 

The reality of the situation was that Venom’s actions threatened the seedy underbelly of the city. It made them desperate, and when people are desperate, they grow inventive.

 

Take right now for instance.

 

While grenades were something they’d encountered before in a brief capacity during their skirmish with the SWAT team back at the beginning of their acquaintance, most assailants assumed that explosive force of the detonation would be enough to at least wear down their defenses. And for the most part, they were right; but given that in most of these cases Venom bounced back with all the vigor of a ricocheting bullet, many gave up on grenades and moved to something else (if they were lucky to survive the encounter).

 

This time, however, the group they'd currently gotten the drop on was surprisingly well-manned and well-armed, and it seemed like they had ammunition to spare. The combination of gunfire and the occasional incendiary device lobbed their way sent them into an increasingly volatile state.

 

They are in the adrenaline rush of the moment; Eddie taking in the details of situation and Venom acting as the agent of their combined will. Like this, so singularly synchronized that they become more like two body systems, working together to optimize the whole, they are a deadly force.

 

Unfortunately, as close to perfect as their bond had developed, the alien nature of either to the other sometimes caused their union to _flinch_ when coming into contact with unforeseen variables. And falling out of sync sometimes held dire consequences.

 

_Shit! That’s new!_

 

While most bullets Venom faced off against made pathetically little difference to the Symbiote’s flexible mass, amounting to a level of annoyance one might exhibit toward the sting of a rubber band snap, the round that had just impacted their shoulder forced them to reflexively drop down and press a clawed hand to the afflicted area.

 

The attention of both Symbiote and host zero in on the slowly regenerating layer of biomass at the junction of their shoulder. The process is worryingly slow compared to their usual verve.

 

_Talk to me, V. Are we in trouble here? Should we maybe back off?_

 

 ** _Should be fine,_** they project with fondness to their worried host, only to duck down as more high-caliber rounds chew up the surrounding area. ** _Once we’ve taken out that gunman_** , they amend with an agitated growl.

 

Before they can enact this plan, their pause behind the cover of shelter, however brief, emboldens their adversaries to propel a series of grenades their way. The concrete pylon at their back explodes with enough concussive force to propel them from the blast and out into the open.

 

They have only moments to register their defenseless position in the midst of the fray before more charges rain down on them. There seems no rhyme or reason to the types of projectiles at this point; their attackers figuratively and literally throw caution to the wind in their desperation to take Venom down.

 

The resulting cacophony of sound and explosive force has the Symbiote’s mass whipping wildly about in involuntary spasms of pain and panic; their form ruptured asunder in viscoelastic ribbons, exposing their terror-stricken host from within.

 

Just as Eddie begins to process the chain of events that led him to that moment, — _the deadening agony of his other’s liquid body sent exploding outwards from his own_ — a series of impacts along his body knock him sprawling to the ground with a momentum that nearly cracks his gritted teeth.

 

The world slows around him and then becomes silent.

 

Distantly, he knows he should be in pain.

 

He feels the bite of the torn up asphalt against the side of his head and he can just make out a wetness creeping across his torso.  It causes his shirt to tug and cling in irritating ways. Hell, he can _feel_ the gurgling hitch in his breathing, and a pressure that forces a reddish froth from between his lips.

 

But there is no pain.

 

And that makes it all the more terrifying.

 

* * *

 

Eddie is in shock.

 

They attempt to gain his attention, speaking to him both externally and internally, but their host doesn’t seem to even register their presence.

 

There is no time to address this near-catatonic state. They cut off their host’s pain receptors in the hope that doing so will afford the human more time and help to lessen the symptoms of shock. They then assess the situation they have been afforded.

 

Gathering the ruptured pieces of themself back together is one of the most challenging prospects at the moment; their damaged form feeling like they’d crawled for a mile in the open air and through fire to anchor back to the battered body of their host. But there is no time to worry about their own hurt.

 

**_Eddie!_ **

 

There is no response. For that, they are conflicted, but ultimately determine that it is better that Eddie not be entirely present for what was to happen next.

 

They steel their resolve. The two of them will survive this; for Eddie’s sake, there was no choice.

 

They might not be in danger of imminent destruction now that the grenade and gunfire had ceased (their enemies having stopped to now scour the destruction for the whatever remained of them), but their host was bleeding out.

 

A number of large caliber rounds peppered his torso, several having torn into his lungs and liver. Miraculously, the heart was unscathed. But the pulse was weak and the blood congealing along Eddie’s airway presented the most pressing danger.

 

(They force themself to view the situation objectively and not allow their growing trepidation to sweep them under. Eddie _would_ survive; that fact was inviolable.)

 

Confident that at the very least their host would feel nothing, they proceeded to force the bullets backward up through their points of entry until the bits of metal protruded up from the human’s chest, like a ghoulish blunted pincushion, before clattering harmlessly to the ground.

 

The rounds in the lungs are a little harder to negotiate. After precious seconds spent considering how best to go about the extraction process, out of frustration they decide to manipulate and force Eddie’s body into exhaling the foreign objects. The resulting flood of blood, ammunition, and bits viscera is disconcerting, but they cannot afford to dwell on the subject.  They push the obstructions through and relegate what little energy they have to spare to repairing the shredded muscle tissue of each lung.

 

Whatever they can’t fix, for want of time and the severe hit to their own energy reserves, they use their own mass to press against as a makeshift compress to prevent further internal bleeding.

 

They check in with Eddie’s status and find it still fluctuating dangerously as a major source bleeding still hadn’t been addressed. Confused, they follow the flow of blood, working for the inside out until they stop at Eddie’s right arm.

 

Or rather, where it should be.

 

Midway down the upper arm the humerus is fractured and exposed to the open air, bits of shattered bone shards tatter slivers of bicep muscle, flayed, limp, and matted with a steady gush of severed brachial arterial flow.

 

There were no remnants of bullets that had minced the limbs flesh. Likely enough the rounds had passed completely through, claiming the lower portion of the arm as collateral damage on their journey toward the more promising target of Eddie’s torso.

 

They are drawn from their thoughts by the approaching presence of their attackers. An alarm of shouts had been raised. They’d been spotted and their opposition was closing in on their position.

 

There was no time to do much more for what remained of the limb, they were too overtaxed to even attempt healing such a major injury and they weren’t entirely sure Eddie would survive the strain of any attempts to reallocate bone mass, muscle tissue, and blood vessels into a haphazard reconstruction.

 

No, any attempts to regrow the limb would have to be done methodically and perfectly. They would not put their host through the pain of needing to remove the arm twice if the healing process was botched.

 

With this in mind, they hastily clean the wound, eating any tissue remains that were too damaged to save and anything that had given up the fight to encroaching necrosis. They then stopper the blood flow by forming an approximation of a tourniquet made from their own biomass.

 

That done, they check Eddie as a whole. He is unconscious. Given the level of blood loss he'd suffered, this came as no surprise. As long as they can keep his heart pumping and his blood circulating long enough to get help, there was hope.

 

**_Please stay with me, Eddie. Don’t give up._ **

 

They don’t expect an answer, but even so, the silence that answers leaves them feeling as though they’re being crushed under the gravitational force of the entire Earth.

 

**_Please. Just hold on._ **

 

The beam of a flashlight illuminates Eddie’s crumpled form in the dark. One of their adversaries had located them.

 

Venom uses some of the vernacular Eddie favored to internally curse every single one of the gunmen, before wrapping their host in their mass. Due to the various injuries they’d sustained, and the need to allocate portions of themself to assist in stabilizing Eddie’s internals, they could only materialize a fraction of their normal size. The results were something that resembled a fitted wetsuit over their host rather than the bulked-up version they usually preferred.

 

It mattered little.

 

Their enemies were only too eager to remind them that their time was up as the one who was shining the flashlight down at them approaches close enough to offer Eddie’s leg a cursory kick with his foot.

 

Deciding that at the very least they would not let this last insult add to their injury, what little of their form they could spare reared up and skewered the man through the trachea; silencing any alarm the man might raise in panic. They muse absently that the man was probably still alive as portions of their biomass flood the facial orifices of their prey and hastily devour his eyes, tongue, grey matter, and anything else that would give them the boost they needed to get Eddie to safety.

 

Before too long, they were forced to give up the effort as approaching shouts and the rattle of gunfire dissuaded them. With a faltering scramble, they direct their host’s battered body to flee into the shadows.

 

* * *

 

All it took was a tiny pinprick to send Eddie’s consciousness hurtling back into the claustrophobic confines of his own body.

 

That, and the insurmountable pain that followed.

 

The noise that breaks through sleep slurred lips isn’t quite a curse, but the intimation was the same. He gives an involuntary full-body shudder that only serves to awaken new points of erupting agony all over his body.

 

He can’t breathe.

 

**What is in that thing? Take it out!**

 

The voice is deafeningly loud in his ears and he flinches away from it.

 

“It’s a saline drip with a mild sedative! Venom, I would never deliberately hurt him! You know that!”

 

**He’s in pain! _Take it out!_**

 

Distantly he is aware of shapes moving past his pain-blurred vision.

 

His breathing is coming too fast, but he doesn’t feel like he’s getting enough oxygen. His skin is hot and clammy at the joints, but at the same time he feels like he’s freezing. The sensation of slipping headfirst down a dark tunnel envelops him; all his senses constrict and once more he is pulled under.

 

* * *

 

Everything has a hazy, half-dream quality to it.

 

He can just make out a shape to his left that dips in and out of his field of vision.

 

In frustration, he tries to blink away the fatigue that sits on his eyelids like lead weights. It would be so easy to let sleep take him again, but the spike of adrenaline that suddenly lances his gut carries the reminder that _something is missing_.

 

He must have made a sound (a grunt or whimper; he’s not sure) because the shape is more solid now and talking to him.

 

“— _you_ can hear me, blink twice.”

 

He does his best to comply and not simply let his eyes stay shut on the second closing.

 

“Excellent. Take your time, Eddie. There’s no rush.”

 

“Dan?” He’s not sure who else it would be, the doctor’s soothing assurances had drawn him out of unconsciousness enough time to set up an unsettling pattern. “We gotta stop meeting like this, Dan”, he mumbles dejectedly.

 

“Hey now, none of that. I would rather have you and Venom come to me when you’re hurt than to find out later you stayed away out of some misplaced sense of guilt. You know that, Eddie.”

 

“Yeah, but I can’t help feeling lik— _Venom!_ Where are they!”  He only just pinpointed that acute sense of loss that had shaken him from sleep. “I can’t _feel_ them!”

 

Oh god, this was the rocket explosion all over again. It had taken the Symbiote weeks to gather the strength to manifest enough to make their presence known. In all that time Eddie felt like he was one big open wound that pulsed incessantly just as often as it was crushingly numb; never allowed to heal.

 

_Venom!_

 

No response.

 

What if they had died during the fight? _Pulled apart_ by the fiery explosions and the deafening noise. _Ripped into tiny fragments_. If he went back, would there even be anything of them left? No, how was he alive if not for his other? What if Venom had perished upon getting Eddie to safety? Cold and alone, giving the last of their strength to their host. _No! He wasn’t worth that!_

 

“Eddie, Eddie! You need to breathe. Deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Do it with me.”

 

The repetition of Dan’s instructions inadvertently wriggling into his subconscious, and before long he is aware that he is mirroring the doctor’s inhalations and exhalations.

 

“It’s ok, Eddie. Venom is just fine. They're with Anne.”

 

Anne?

 

This revelation both pacified his frazzled nerves and stoked new anxieties.

 

Why were they with Anne?  Why weren't they here, with him? Had they decided to give up on Eddie? Was he too much trouble after this last failure?

 

Something of his thoughts must have darkened his features because Dan is quick to explain, “Venom insisted they needed a larger quantity of nutrients to accelerate the healing process of your injuries. They needed more than either Anne or I could secure for them. Anne suggested the two of them go…hunting.”

 

The doctor’s expression turned distinctly uncomfortable at this last part.

 

He'd never actively condemned Eddie or Venom for their ‘dietary needs’. Heck, he’d actually helped the pair single out the specific components Venom needed in order to combat what they’d come to understand as the Symbiote equivalent of a vitamin deficiency. With Dan’s help, the two of them were able to compose the workings of a diet plan that was both protein and phenylethylamine rich (chocolate, lentils, nuts, eggs, and red meats) and nutritionally balanced (about 200% more fruits and vegetables than Eddie normally ate by choice).

 

That said, Eddie and Venom made no effort to hide the fact that they occasionally partook in quasi-cannibalism when the opportunity presented itself. Eddie’s reaction had once been much the same as Dan’s; caught in a cognitive dissonance that attempted to deny the reality that he was now part man-eater.  But the fascinating thing about humans was that prolonged exposure to anything could foster a feeling of indifference.

 

He’d just never thought Anne would be so quick to make the same cognitive leap after her first encounter with biting a man’s head off.

 

“Hunting?” His voice carries the intonation of incredulity more than a need for reconfirmation. He looks around his apartment as if expecting Anne and Venom to pop up out of the clutter and explain themselves.

 

Dan clears his voice in a nervous gesture. “Yeah, she actually seemed kind of…excited by the idea. Something about introducing Venom to a few sex offenders that had escaped justice on account of courtroom technicalities. I tried not to listen too closely.” The small smile he offers Eddie was pinched, to say the least.

 

Eddie exhales noisily and goes to throw his arms over his eyes in relief…only one arm responds.

 

He’s so startled by this that his left hand accidentally smacks him in the face.

 

“Wha—?”

 

He hikes down the blanket draped over his torso and comes face to face with nothing.

 

His arm is gone.

 

In its place, extending about eight inches down from his shoulder is a rounded off stump of flesh, wrapped in gauze. The blood seems to drain from him causing a chill to wrap around his core.

 

Out of some morbid sense of _something_ (Curiosity? Loss? Denial?), he tries to flex the muscles in what remained of his right arm. The sensation of what was once there is almost tangible under the vague pain of torn muscle tissue trying and failing to respond.

 

The whole thing is surreal.

 

“Eddie? Hey, breathe.”

 

Instead of hyperventilating this time, he’d stopped drawing in air altogether. At Dan’s voice, he inhales shakily and looks to the other man. “My arm is gone.”

 

“I know, Eddie. I know,” Dan takes his remaining hand into both of his own and offers a grounding pressure. “What can I do for you, Eddie? Do you want me here, or should I go?  Do you need a minute?”

 

“ _Don’t go!_ ” They don’t mean to yell in Dan’s face, but the idea of the man leaving after his world had just taken a vertigo-inducing nose-dive panicked him anew.

 

“I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Just had to ask. Everyone processes these kinds of things differently. Can I get you anything? Water? How are you feeling pain-wise?”

 

He appreciates that the other man was trying to center him in the moment, but he's still reeling. “My arm is _gone_. It’s _fucking gone_.” This comes out more as a half-strangled whisper.

 

Dan ducks his head for a moment. Having seemingly come to some internal conclusion, the man says, “I shouldn’t be telling you this. At the very least it should be Venom explaining all this, but…they think they might be able to regrow your arm.”

 

He’s not sure what the look on his face conveys, but it has Dan hurrying to continue.

 

“That’s why they're out with Anne; have been for the last couple nights. They’re hoping that with enough extra…’materials’ they can regrow the limb little by little. And from what I can tell, so far it’s working. It’s actually quite a fascinating process. I’ve been working with them to make sure everything goes smoothly and that all the internal structures appear right. Venom is actually pretty modest about their understanding of anatomy, they made some great headway even before I offered to double-check their work.”

 

Dan’s shift from an empathetic bedside manner to perhaps a _bit_ too interested in the recreation of Eddie’s blood and bones left the bedridden man with mild whiplash. And this was the same doctor that got squeamish over Venom reminiscing over how chocolate shells on ice cream reminded them of the _crunch_ of skulls.

 

That was beside the point though, “you can fix my arm?”

 

 **_We_ ** **can fix your arm.**

 

And here a slimmed down and distinctly more feminine form of Venom slips in through the living room window with a dexterity that would make Eddie envious (if he wasn’t so distracted by the combined form of his ex and his other). While he may no longer have the same lingering feelings he once had for Anne, he couldn't help but admire the pair; they complimented each other in their resplendence.

 

Dan apparently agreed, as he seemed to stumble over his words a little before conceding, “right, we. All of us, working together.”

 

Venom loomed over him for a brief moment before a large clawed hand grasped his own. The sensation of the Symbiote’s mass flowing back into his body left him lightheaded with the rush of _affection-worry-love-relief_ that sang through his veins.

 

A serpentine head forms up out of his abdomen and rushes forward, locking his lips in a kiss that quickly turns a bit heated.

 

**_Missed you, Eddie._ **

 

An awkward cough from Dan breaks off the kiss, but not before the Symbiote is sure to leave off an affectionate lick to his cheek. Eddie can feel his face color with euphoria and a touch of sheepishness.

 

Anne looks less than impressed. “I’m just glad you waited until you got back in him to kiss him this time.” Her raised eyebrow does nothing to deter the Symbiote from grinning all the wider.

 

Dan must have been made aware of the implications of this statement because rather than confused or affronted the man simply looks just as embarrassed as Eddie feels. A lot of conversations must have happened in the time he was unconscious. Just how long had he been asleep?

 

“V, what happened while I was out?” He absently reaches for his other and is met with the press of semi-viscous mass into the cup of his hand. The ever-shifting sickles of the Symbiote’s eyes squint in pleasure as tension unwinds from their joined being.

 

**Nearly lost you. Was scared. Wasn’t sure you’d make it this time.**

 

This admission leaves him staggering like a punch to the gut.

 

Now he feels like the scum of the earth for even entertaining for a moment that his other had left him out of some sense of wanting a replacement. Some semblance of this must leak through their connection because an acute whine of pain pushes up from the Symbiote.

 

**Would _never_ leave you, Eddie. **

 

“Of course not, love.”

 

They curl together; Venom braced up against the juncture of his chest and neck and his remaining arm woven into the mass of his other, drawing them as close into the cradle of his core as he can.

 

Dan and Anne politely excuse themselves over to the other side of the tiny apartment under the presence of preparing a light dinner while giving the reunited pair some space.

 

“If anyone needs to get better at not leaving, I guess it's me, huh.” Eddie’s attempt at self-deprecating humor dies pathetically about halfway out of his mouth. He’s choking up; he can’t help it.

 

The very reality of the matter was that one day, one of them might not make it. And then the other would need to move on.

 

And _for fuck's sake_ , if it had to be him, he hoped to god that Venom would have Anne or someone equally as good for them to go to. As long as they knew that they wouldn’t be alone if he—.

 

**_Dwelling on hypotheticals will do nothing but torture us, Eddie._ **

 

_I know, love. I just can’t help it. It’s a human thing to worry about what happens after we die._

 

**_Human’s think too much about death._ **

 

The irony of this statement forces wet laughter from a mouth previously drawn tight in anguish.

 

**_We will take each day one at a time. Once we are comfortable with that, we will think of the future; not with trepidation for what pain it might hold, but as a gift that we will share in. Together._ **

 

* * *

 

 

The healing process is slow.

 

It’s about a month before Eddie’s right arm has fully grown back and another two of exercising and implementing a self-imposed physical therapy regiment before the limb is in any kind of working order again.

 

Even still, it's slow going.

 

He has to re-establish muscle memory to get his handwriting looking anything close to what it once was.  Typing is made even more difficult with clumsy and ineffectual finger movements.  Some days the muscles in his shoulder cramped so terribly that he has to stop whatever it is he’s doing in favor of clenching his teeth and rubbing at the offending shoulder for however long it took for the pain to abate.

 

Some days he can crack a joke about feeling like a lizard that regrew its tail.

 

Other days he wakes up in a cold sweat and has to map every inch of his right arm with the questing fingers of his left in order to come to terms with the fact that it was real.

 

It’s a fairly mundane morning around the start of spring (drinking coffee with his laptop pulled open, his other purring pleasantly as the sunlight streams in and offers a pleasant warmth to the world. Eddie is twisting a tendril of Venom absently about his fingers, raising it every so often to offer it a gentle kiss. The Symbiote smells faintly of some kind of baked-good, something with cinnamon, _who knew?_ ), when a soft sadness colors his mood as he gazes down at his arm.

 

Venom offers a small questioning trill, their host’s sudden gloom affecting them in turn.

 

“It’s stupid, don’t worry about it.”

 

The Symbiote’s answer is a mental prod and the narrowing of their eyes in reproach. **Not stupid if it upsets you.**

 

He lets out a sigh for a good couple of seconds before pushing forward. “It’s stupid, it's just…I miss my tattoos.”

 

It was a ridiculous thing to get depressed about, especially given that it was a fucking miracle he even had a right arm at all at the moment. He should be grateful and stop moping about idiotic shit like the loss of some ink.

 

**They were meaningful to you. Each one was a happy memory.**

 

Venom coils slowly around the arm in question; offering a reassuring pressure and sharing a bit of the warmth the sunlight had endued them with.

 

“Yeah, they were kinda special,” that statement feels lame coming out of his mouth but Venom hums in acknowledgment, reassuring him that his sadness, in whatever form it manifested, was valid.

 

He watched, bemused, as his other sank beneath the skin his arm and out of sight, only for tiny black veins to bubble up to the surface and attempt different weavings and patterns. As the inky black mass of the Symbiote twists and turns just beneath the third layer of the dermis, shifting in a kaleidoscope of different concentric shapes, Eddie can feel a grin shape his face.

 

 ** _Will need some practice_** the Symbiote huffs softly as they attempt a fractal spiral effect down the length of his inner forearm.

 

He is struck with awe as stunning, moving works of art display across his skin. His other is so beautiful.

 

He presses a series of soft kisses up and down the length of his arm. Gradually, the Symbiote rises up through the pores at his wrist and meets him in a long, sweet kiss.

 

There was no telling what tomorrow would hold, but if one thing was certain, there was no one else he’d rather walking into the gaping maw of the unknown future with than the one he held right now in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was kinda frustrating, not gonna lie. I got about halfway through writing when my file got corrupted and I lost everything. I tried my best to reconstruct the chapter from my memory and from my notes, but it feels a bit lacking regardless.
> 
> I tried to approach the topic of loss of limb as respectfully as I could within the scope of a work of fiction. If I overstepped any boundaries, please let me know and I will work to correct the issue to the best of my abilities.
> 
> Fun Fact: I decided to include the little tidbit at the end there about Venom possibly smelling like cinnamon because I work at a year-round Halloween/costume store and our Deluxe Venom Mask legit came out of the box smelling like a bakery. It was so different from the usual awful latex smell that I ecstatically went around to everyone in my department and told them to smell it. Weird, I know.
> 
> I was hoping to get two chapters out this week, but that might not happen at this point. In any case, I hope you all enjoyed!


	8. Cutthroat

Believe it or not, Eddie and Venom were not always looking for trouble.

 

Frequently, on nights that they hunted, trouble found them with very little effort. That came more or less with the territory. But sometimes, they just wanted to have a nice evening without the pressures of their vigilante lifestyle harassing their every movement.

 

It was difficult. It became apparent early on that they couldn’t help everyone, and attempting to do so took a heavy toll on the bonded pair, both physically and emotionally.

 

It wasn’t that Eddie hadn’t been aware of the problems in the city before now. Rather, as one person with very little to offer in the way of dealing with said problems, he concerned himself more with reporting on and bringing awareness to issues, as opposed to addressing them directly. Now, with Venom, he could do so much more to help rid the city of crime and corruption.

 

And they did. And they continued to do so. But even as two beings in one, with twice the resilience and ferocity of any of their opponents, they were spreading themselves _very_ thin.

 

Running a double life had become hell on Eddie’s sleeping schedule, and what little rest he could obtain was often fraught with volatile dreams that left him tormented with guilt and self-doubt. Was he doing the right thing? Could he do more? Were their methods too extreme? In the dark, these and a million more questions piled up one on top of another in his mind, choking him till he is left clinging to Venom until the Symbiote’s gentle embrace and rocking motions lull him back to unconsciousness in the early hours. The resulting days left him feeling like he was wandering through a thick malaise in the waking world.

 

Venom had reached a breaking point and decided that this pattern of stress and spiraling self-destructive behavior had to stop before it became any worse. The intervention came in the form of them practically gluing Eddie to the couch until he agreed to take a break and just relax.

 

The two of them came up with a schedule of sorts, to take a day off of work (writing and crime fighting, respectively) and just enjoying themselves at least once a week. No worrying about deadlines, no gut-wrenching thoughts of who might need their help that night. Just the two of them and the indulgence of their whims and desires.

 

That day they’d decided to take advantage of the warming weather and walk around Golden Gate Park. The general hum of activity and life helped ground Eddie in the moment and Venom radiated contentment and curiosity in equal measure. Their internal conversations and observations ebbed and flowed along their bond like the benign ripples of water along the ponds they circumvented.

 

As the sun set, Eddie discreetly held the last of his cone of chocolate ice cream he’d purchased just out of sight, where Venom could manifest a few tendrils from their form (currently posing as a jacket) and snap up the melting treat. A vague sensation of cold traveled up his arm, leaving him to wonder offhandedly at the logistics of how the Symbiote transported food around his body, while he perused a selection of tacky plastic trinkets for sale at a booth by the park’s exit.

 

**_Get that one._ **

 

He followed the mental nudge to a keychain that had a cartoonish rendition of the Golden Gate Bridge emblazoned across its surface in bright colors.

 

_This stuff’s really more for tourists, babe._

****

**_Want one from every city, even ours._ **

 

He couldn’t resist the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth even as he rolls his eyes. His work had been entrusting him with more interesting pursuits as of late, resulting in him being given the opportunity to travel a bit through and out of state. In each place they ended up, Venom asked for something small (a bumper sticker, a pressed penny, a postcard) to commemorate their trip. They collected these treasures all in an old shoebox that Eddie playfully dubbed ‘the dragon’s hoard’. Any time Anne and Dan came over after one of these out-of-town trips, Venom was eager to show off what tiny piece of Reno Nevada or Portland Oregon they’d obtained.

 

One day, Eddie hoped his work might take him back to New York so that he might have the chance to share his true home city with his other. He still had a lot of complicated feelings about the place, sure, but nostalgia is a funny thing, and perhaps with Venom, he could make some newer, happier memories.

 

He purchases the keychain and hums softly in response to Venom’s trill of delight. As the warmth in the air begins to shift to that of a cool evening, Eddie makes his way out of the park; gently depositing the new trinket into his ‘jacket’ pocket where black tendrils coil around it protectively.

 

With the light fading and the twinkling of traffic and neon signs alighting and silhouetting the enlivening nocturnal beats of the city, they walk home.

 

They converse in hushed internal tones about the critical topic of dinner arrangements for that evening as Eddie weaves through the foot traffic. The recalled sunbaked scent of the greenery they’d spend the day wandering aimlessly through still filled his nose with a savor that he knew would leave him regretful of the day’s end.

 

 ** _We will go back,_** Venom asserted with assurance. **_Soon._**

 

_Next day off?_

 

**_Yes. Want to see the museums next time._ **

****

They’d elected to spend the day walking the paths and around the botanical gardens to enjoy the weather, but there were still plenty of places in the park they hadn’t managed to visit.

 

_Ok, yeah. We can do that and whatever else you want, love._

**_Want to eat a bison._ **

_Let me amend that last point. Whatever you want, within reason._

 

The Symbiote grumbles and Eddie feels something swirl somewhere in the space of his diaphragm, causing him to let out a string of tiny hiccups.

 

_Rude. I was gonna suggest we hit up that one kebab stand we like on the way home, but now I guess we can end the night with those leftover chicken wings in the fridge._

 

He experiences a strange sensation, like that of air decompression causing his ears to pop, occurs within the center of his abdomen, before his hiccups abate completely.

 

**_Will settle for regular beef…for now. But we want double meat on the_ ** **_skewer this time._ **

 

 _We’ll get as many as we can with…shit._ He looks down at his wallet and confirms that it’s empty. They’d apparently used up what little cash he’d had on hand at the park. _Hold that thought. Need to stop at an ATM._

 

It takes them a bit of searching before they find a beat up ATM machine tucked between a few closed shop fronts. If Eddie had considered approaching the machine in such an out-of-the-way section of the city, with only a sparse few pedestrians frequenting the area, all kinds of red flags would have started frantically waving. As he was right now, with an over-protective alien snug about his torso mimicking a stylish leather jacket, the only threat to his person at present was that the shady machine might eat his card.

 

But even on the days the two of them were determined to set aside their crime-fighting work, it seemed inevitable that everywhere they went there was some bit of bad luck hovering ominously over them, like a particularly capricious mosquito looking for an opportune moment to alight on a target.

 

Thanks to Venom, Eddie knew what was coming long before a voice spoke. He didn’t flinch as a knife poked at the uncovered skin of his neck, merely stilled with the screen of the ATM prompting him to make a selection. He could feel annoyance coming off of Venom in palpable waves.

 

“Give me your money.”

 

It took everything in Eddie not to physically groan. If his ears weren’t playing tricks on him, he was positive that the thug holding a blade to his throat _was a child._

 

The tension in his frame dissipates into exasperation. Just what he needed, to face off against a mugger that was probably still a minor.

 

“Isn’t it past your bedtime, kid?”

 

 ** _Eddie, what are you doing?_** his other questions just as the person behind him give him a shove in the back and snaps “Shut the fuck up! I’m not a fucking kid!”

 

Even though the mugger was slightly taller and more build than Eddie, his deliberate attempt to deepen his voice made it painfully obvious of his youth. Even Venom very gradually lowered their guard in favor of a budding confusion.

 

**_Can we eat him?_ **

 

Even though the question was less about asking for permission and more of a rhetorical moral quandary, Eddie chose to answer, _No, we don’t eat kids. From the sound of his voice, he’s probably no older than 17._

**_Old enough to be a threat._ **

_Yeah, but also young enough to get his life back on track. Maybe we can help him._

 

This rationale apparently mollified the Symbiote, because with a begrudging mental sigh they relaxed their guard and let their host do the talking.

 

Evidently, Eddie had taken too long to comply with the mugger’s first demand, earning him a repeated shove.

 

“Withdraw as much cash as you can and fucking give it to me, now!”

 

“Look, you really don’t want to do this.” Eddie can just make out the reflection of the face behind him on the screen’s surface. The armature hadn’t even concealed his appearance. “You know these machines record transactions, right?” That very fact had been half the reason Eddie was reluctant to let Venom take over, if not also because his other would have no compunctions about eating an attacker, no matter their apparent age.

 

“That’s fucking bullshit!” The voice the mugger cracked in slight panic, but rather than flee now while he could, the kid decided to throw all caution to the wind. The blade at Eddie neck presses in a little deeper as the kid grows more desperate. “Don’t fuck with me man, just give me the money!”

 

Even as confident as Eddie was that one real harm would come to him and Venom from this encounter, he couldn’t help but grow nervous with the way the kid would not relent. He really didn’t want to hurt him. The way the kid was frightened told him that this was about more than just money.

 

_V, forget the camera. We need to end this._

 

Just as the Symbiote was about to form up and over Eddie, another voice broke that tension.

 

“Hey, what going on here,” asked someone from behind.

 

The kid, for all his apparent youth, was surprisingly strong, and was able to maneuver Eddie so that he was now between his attacker and the new voice; knife still digging into his neck and his hands raised in a placating gesture.

 

The guy that stood before them wasn’t all that much bigger than Eddie himself and was severally unimposing. In fact, as far as potential rescuers went, Eddie never would have looked twice at this guy.

 

That said, something about him was vaguely familiar.

 

Despite the very serious nature of the situation, the guy felt compelled to give a tiny wave and a “hi” as Eddie and his attack looked on.

 

Was this guy serious?

 

For as unassuming as Eddie’s rescuer was, he only served to make the kid more nervous and hostile.

 

“Look man, you need to back off or this is gonna get nasty.” The body behind Eddie braced against his back; the knife repositioned to his windpipe.

 

Whoever this new guy was, he must’ve understood that he’d complicated matters, because he too raises his hands. “Hey now, the knife isn’t necessary.”

 

“You should have thought of that before you came over here trying to play that hero!”

 

And Eddie couldn’t help but agree. What did this guy hope to achieve by approaching an armed robber if his idea of helping was to come up and introduce himself? If his body language was anything to go by, the guy seemed just as at a loss as Eddie.

 

“Maybe we could all just calm down a little? We can all just go our separate ways and nobody has to hurt anyone or tell anyone about this, yeah?” Eddie was trying to give this kid and out. If he left now, Eddie would drop the matter and make sure the busybody across from him did too.

 

Luckily, said busybody caught on and was quick to agree. “Yeah, absolutely. We can all just forget this ever happened.”

 

“No fucking way. You said the machine was recording, and now this guy is a witness. What’s to stop you from going to the cops?”

 

“Nothing to go to the cops about if nothing happens.” Eddie really wished the knife would stop digging into his throat every little time he spoke.

 

He could Venom practically vibrating with the instinct to strike out and shred the body pressing threateningly into Eddie’s own. Only his repetitive, _He’s just a child, V. He doesn’t know what he’s doing_ , was keeping the Symbiote from manifesting a pair of jaws and mauling the mugger’s own neck.

 

“Take to me, kid. What is this really about? Do you need help?” He tried to keep his voice reassuring and his posture as relaxed as he could while being held at knifepoint.

 

“Did someone put you up to this?” the man in front asks. Eddie can’t make out his features too well in the dim, but he sounds just as troubled by the implications as Eddie feels.

 

That last question draws a reaction from the body behind him. A flinch almost removes the knife entirely at the stuttering of breath from the kid.

 

“It was supposed to be easy. Go in and get the money. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.” The kid almost sounds regretful under the layer of verbal frustration spat through clenched teeth.

 

Eddie didn’t like the use of past tense. It was almost as if the kid had already played the scenario out in his head and felt backed into a corner. At this point, Eddie didn’t care what happened to himself (not that Venom wouldn’t allow anything to happen), but if this kid didn’t cool it, he might do something regretful.

 

Things had fallen into a tense silence in which no one moved. It was becoming sickeningly clear that no one quite knew what to do.

 

He had to try one more time to get through to him. If all else failed, Venom could easily incapacitate the mugger in the blink of an eye. That option left a bitter taste in his mouth. How could he hope to fix anything if he just resorted to violence again and again?

 

“If someone else’s got you doing this, I know someone who can help you. Someone how can protect you.” While Venom’s niche in the city was still slowly but surely being carved out, he was counting on the kid to have heard enough about the pair’s exploits to put two and two together.

 

And evidently, the kid did know what, or rather, who Eddie had been hinting at. But if he’d been expecting a positive reaction, he had severely miscalculated.

 

Eddie felt his gut clench in anxiety seconds before several things happened at once.

 

A hand grabs the back of Eddie's neck and thrusts it forward into the knife with a force that he hadn’t thought the kid capable of. He doesn’t really even register the bite of the blade in comparison to the surreal sight of his own blood spraying forth like a busted pipe.

 

More than the pain, he feels Venom’s terror as the Symbiote lunges at the mugger barely restrained fury. Distantly, Eddie hears the crunch of bone just beneath a sickening scream and a litany of panicked curses. He falls hard to the ground and gasps wetly through a flayed trachea that he could already feel was hastily stitching itself back together. Even still, the rush of blood that had exited his body left his sight swimming in disorientation.

 

There’s some commotion above him, but he isn’t in any present state to address it.

 

He failed.

 

He tried to talk the kid down and help him and at the slightest hint of his and his other’s vigilante persona, the kid had panicked. What did that say about the kind of influence he was projecting onto the city?

 

They were just trying to help.

 

He doesn’t have long to allow for this train of thought as a pair of hands grasp his hunched shoulders and act to roll him over. Venom bristles violently at the touch but reconstitutes the shape of a jacket in the dark as Eddie recognizes the worried voice of the man from earlier speaking rapidly into a phone.

 

“No, I’m calling this off. He needs an ambulance right now. I’m sorry. Your right, this was stupid. Are you near? There’s a lot of blood, Hope. He needs a hospital.”

 

**No hospital!!**

 

Eddie and Venom’s voices resonate together as they both blurt the adamant retort. The last thing they needed to add to this flaming dumpster fire of a mess was a bunch of doctors prodding at Eddie looking for a wound that was inexplicably gone.

 

The guy jumps and nearly drops his phone.

 

“What do you mean no hospital? You just had your throat slit open! How are you even speaking right now?”

 

Eddie does his best to angle himself away from the disbelieving gaze of the man kneeling before him and, with a bit of help from his other, regains his footing. “Where did that kid go?”

 

His attempt to change the topic is clumsy, but he’s genuinely concerned about all the might have happened while he was knocked down.

 

**_Got him off of you, Eddie. Don’t worry, didn’t hurt him too badly. He ran away._ **

_Fuck! Did you see where he went? Do you think you could track him?_

 

He searches the darkened alleyways, but any life that might have populated the fringes of the area had now completely vanished.

 

“Shit.”

 

“I’m calling an ambulance.”

 

Right, there was still this guy to deal with. A guy that was surprisingly hard to scare off given that most good Samaritans would have considered a near crime scene beyond their altruistic duty to contend with.

 

“You’re not calling an ambulance. I’m fine. He only nicked me.”

 

The man makes a sweeping gesture to the blood-soaked ground; a wet black that adds a sheen to the asphalt in the dim light. “You call that a nick?”

 

**_Eddie. Something is coming._ **

 

“Look, buddy. I appreciate that you were trying to help, but now you gotta go and forget what you saw here, ok?”

 

He doesn’t wait for a reply before sprinting to the nearest alley and allowing Venom to melt over his form completely and guide them away, hastily into the dark.

 

* * *

 

 

They spend the better part of the night trying to catch the sent of the mugger, but Venom’s senses are only able to capitalize and improve on Eddie’s own, rending the pair a more visual hunter rather than anything else. Even as they continue the search with the dull pink of dawn cresting the skyline, Eddie knows it’s useless.

 

He can feel Venom’s hesitance. The Symbiote doesn’t want to be the one to suggest that they give up, but as Eddie’s mood darkens the swirling unease in their shared gut only grows worse.

 

Finally, Eddie admits defeat and allows his other to guide them home.

 

There are no reassuring platitudes shared between them. They’d both come to terms with the reality that they couldn’t help everyone, but facing that reality up close still hurt.

 

They drop down into the shadows and shift back into Eddie’s mundane human guise before walking the last couple of blocks to their apartment building. It’s a familiar sensation to be coming home in early hours, but it's no less arduous.

 

It’s a testament to just how fatigued the night left the two of them that they make their way into the apartment, lock the door behind them, and are burning a trail to the coffee pot before noticing that a fresh cup is already waiting on the countertop.

 

“Hey, uh—“

 

Eddie whips around so fast he almost trips and falls sideways.

 

The guy from last night is sitting at the tiny table by his window and has the nerve to look just as shocked to see Eddie as Eddie is to see him. Even the little chipped mug of coffee the guy is helping himself to Eddie recognizes as Venom’s favorite hot chocolate mug.

 

After a night of scouring the city on their day off to come home to _this?_ They were understandably livid.

 

This must of translated fairly clearly across Eddie's face because the guy is quick to reassure, “I just want to talk.”

 

**_Eddie, we know him._ **

 

He’d been so unpleasantly surprised by the apparent intruder into their home that he only none registered the changed appearance of the man. He was decked from his neck to his feet in what appeared to be some kind of suit. One that was a very familiar black with red accents. Sure enough, Eddie’s eyes find an all too familiar helmet stowed under the table at the guy’s feet.

 

He takes a moment to wonder at his luck before addressing the elephant in the room.

 

“So, Ant-Man huh?”

 

“Jesus, I know we kinda got off on the wrong foot, but you don’t have to sound so thrilled.”

 

Eddie can’t help a snort of amusement. “To what do I owe the pleasure of San Francisco’s finest breaking into my home and stealing my coffee, hm?” As he says this, he retrieves the other mug and takes a cautious sip. To his surprise, it’s still warm. This guy must have poured it minutes before Eddie came in. Had the guy been tailing him all night?

 

“To be fair, I would have come at a more appropriate time, but you weren’t in. And I came to give you back this.”

 

At that, Ant-Man tosses something to Eddie that almost lands in his mug. After a brief moment of fumbling, the bit of plastic is revealed to be his debit card. The same one he’d accidentally left in the ATM last night. With all that had been happening, he’d forgotten it.

 

It was a stupid mistake and one that brought a fellow vigilante into his midst. He couldn’t be sure how much the other man knew about him. Googling his name would only link him to his journalistic career, but Ant-Man wouldn’t have pursued him all the way to his home if he just thought Eddie was a journalist and nothing more, right?

 

If the guy hadn’t had suspicions before, then last night was pretty damning.

 

“So, Eddie, how’s the neck?”

 

Unconsciously, Eddie lifted his free hand to trace the unblemished curve of his throat where he distinctly remembered thick gurgles of blood spilling from between his grasping fingers and fissured flesh.

 

A small concerned sound from his other draws him back into focus. “All better now, thanks,” he says a bit too quickly.

 

“Ok. This isn’t going to get any less tense or awkward without help, is it? I know about you, Eddie. I’ve known about you for a while now and I've seen you.”

 

“You’ve seen me. What does that mean exactly?”

 

“Oh, come on, you’re really going to make me say it? I know that you’re the big scary monster thing that’s been stalking the city. I’ve seen you around some on my own fights and I’ve gotten tired of waiting for you to work up the courage to come say hi so I’ve come to you,” at this, the man stands up and offers his hand out for Eddie to shake. “Hi, I’m Scott Lang. Also known as Ant-Man. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

 

Eddie wants to stay cautious, but the eager smile and open demeanor of the guy reads as just a bit too much to be anything other than genuine.

 

It’s true that Venom had watched and assisted with Ant-Man’s work on occasion. Mostly because whatever catastrophe the guy got involved with usually resulted in high infrastructure destruction and the necessary evacuation of bystanders. No one was thrilled to be saved by Venom, but they were even less thrilled by the possibility of being turned into collateral damage. On more than one occasion they’d toyed with the idea of approaching the other hero, but decided that the man’s priorities were more focused on large-scale threats and not the back alley justice that was their wheelhouse. Plus, few people really got past the whole cannibalism thing.

 

Then again, they _could_ really use some allies at the moment.

 

Without allowing himself to think too much more about it, Eddie grasps Scott’s hand and gives it an easy shake. “Hi, Scott. I’m Eddie Brock. Also known as Venom.”

 

He pauses for a moment as something else that had been bugging him since last night surfaces.

 

“Wait, I know you. Scott Lang, you said? Aren’t you the guy that hacked Vistacorp and exposed them for cheating their customers out of millions? I wrote a whole article about you!”

 

“Wait, really?”

 

“Yeah man, I covered the Vistacorp case intensively. No one wanted to hear it at the time, but what you did really changed corporate accountability in this city. At least, for a short time. Then I guess everybody forgot about all that when Carlton Drake started none too subtlety buying peoples loyalty with his mountains of money.”

 

“That’s you! You’re that Eddie Brock! You took down the Life Foundation!” Scott looks just as enthused as Eddie about having apparently belatedly connected the dots on his identity.

 

Nonetheless, he’s flattered. “I had a lot of help,” he says with a smile directed both at Scott and his alien body-mate.

 

The moment is interrupted as something buzzes between them and Eddie almost reels back and smacks the thing out of surprise.

 

“No, wait! It’s ok! That’s my ride!”

 

As he says this, Scott raises his hand, palm up; allowing for a rather sizable flying insect to land on the up curve of his fingertips. Eddie leans forward close enough to identify it as a winged ant.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Oh?” Scott echoes back with a smile.

 

“You actually have ants.”

 

“Well yeah, I’m Ant-Man.”

 

“Just thought it was a cheesy little moniker ‘cause you do the shrinking thing.”

 

“Well, I mean yeah, but it's not…Ok, what about you, huh? What’s your gimmick? Do you spit venom or something? Where’s your suit?”

 

**Hello.**

 

The shout Scott lets out as Venom manifests fluidly from Eddie’s shoulder it cut off as the guy falls backward onto his ass. The ant, unsettled from its perch, zips in about the apartment in a tizzy.

 

Venom grins all the more widely for having caught the other man at a disadvantage.

 

“Yeah, so this is Venom. And when we do this—“

 

And here Symbiote and host merge together into their larger, much more intimidating form; hunching offer to not knock into the ceiling as they introduce themselves properly.

 

**We are Venom.**

 

They allow the moment to linger, just long enough to savor the look of terror on Scott’s face as the man backs away from them across the floor, before absorbing back into Eddie. Venom makes sure to remain partially visible from their vantage point spread out across the width of Eddie’s shoulders like a smug eldritch cat.

 

“That’s a lot scarier up close,” Scott says as Eddie helps him back up to his feet. “I got to see all kinds of weird shit when I was around the Avengers, but you are easily the weirdest.”

 

 **Thank you,** Venom says with a rolling purr.

 

“So you’ve known about me and V for a while, yeah? What was all that about last night?” Eddie tries to ask the question casually, but at the mention of the Avengers, his guard is back up. How many others might know about Eddie through this guy?

 

“Oh, right! Well, it’s actually kind of a funny story. I’ve noticed you around in your, ah—“ and here he makes a nervous gesture to Venom, “other form. I tried to track you through the city—“

 

“You tracked us?”

 

“With ants! Just with ants, I swear! Anyway, I was out with some work friends last night and I got notified that you were nearby. So I went to say hi? Honestly, I was not prepared for all that went down. I didn’t even have my suit.”

 

“So your ants know about me,” and Eddie never thought he’d have to say something like that with a straight face in his life. “Anyone else?”

 

“Uh, my partner, Hope. She knows the situation. That’s ok, right? She was actually on her way last night, before you ran off.”

 

“As long as it’s no one else.”

 

“Well…her parents are probably aware of the situation, to be honest.”

 

Eddie resists the urge to sigh deeply and rub at his temples. The night had been long and his patience was dwindling. He reaches back for his coffee in the hope that caffeine might stave off an oncoming headache.

 

“Anyone else?” he asks a bit too sharply with exasperation.

 

“Nope. At least, if there is, I had nothing to do with them.”

 

A noise from one of Scott’s pockets distracts the man while Eddie considers everything that had been dumped on them in the last couple of minutes.

 

“That’s my cue! Gotta get home before my daughter gets dropped off. We have a whole day planned that I’ve been looking forward to for a week.” Scott awkwardly looks about the cluttered apartment before spying a piece of scratch paper and a pen. “Contact me in you want to talk some about…well, all this. It doesn’t have to be about the stuff we do, it can just be a friendly ear if you need to chat.”

 

Scott’s movements slow as he picks up his helmet and looks at it intently as he holds it in his hands. After a moment, his eyes track back up to Eddie’s and then over to Venom’s. There’s a little bit of hesitation in his movements in regards to the Symbiote, but they find it more amusing than off-putting. It is not a hesitation born from distaste, but rather cautious respect.

 

“I’ve heard a lot of what gets said about you guys around the city.”

 

Eddie’s stomach clenches unpleasantly at this. He knew what Scott was referring to. It was no wonder that kid had panicked at the slightest hint of Venom; he and his other were just as often called a monster rather than any kind word. Even those who didn’t have malevolence for them regarded them more as a kind of bogeyman that would just as often target the innocent as the guilty. It was a thankless job, to say the least.

 

“I’ve seen you protect people before and I saw how hard you tried to help that guy last night. It might not seem like it from where your standing, but rest assured, you’re making a difference.”

 

Eddie is hardly given any time to process these words before Scott is putting his helmet on, and within seconds, seemingly pops out of existence. It is only through Venom lending Eddie their superior vision that he is able to witness the mid-air flight maneuver that the flying ant perfectly executes to catch the tiny man from the air and carry him away, out the cracked window.

 

Numb with emotions that were still lying just beneath the surface of his thought, Eddie considers the surreal meeting they just had while he collects the two, now cold, mugs of coffee and takes them over to the sink to be dumped.

 

Scott didn’t seem to be pushing any kind of agenda other than, what, wanting to be their friend? Ally?

 

**He seems nice. A little bit of a loser, like us.**

 

Loser had become something of a badge of honor that Venom granted to others. They’d confessed to Anne and Dan one night that they tragically didn’t meet the standards of the high-ranking titles of loser. Neither of them had known how to take this pronouncement, but Eddie had nearly fallen on the floor laughing.

 

It had become a term of endearment between the Symbiote and host, so to hear Venom make this distinction about Scott so soon after meeting him was a bit surprising.

 

“Is that so? Well, with a glowing endorsement like that, I guess we might have to take him up on that call sometime.”

 

**He understands. He sees us, what we are doing.**

 

A cynical part of Eddie wants to retort with, ‘yeah, for how long though?’, but he clamps down on this impulse. His other deserved better than to be met with the products of his own self-doubt.

 

Hell, the guy seemed to think that despite whatever reputation the city at large had built up against them, that they were making a notable difference. That had to count for something coming from a guy that met the Avengers of all people.

 

Still, this not-so-chance meeting raised a lot of points. They couldn’t take for granted that their action would only be noticed by the city of San Francisco anymore. Not now that some potentially powerful people knew about them.

 

In the end, they would continue as they were; helping to save innocent lives and clean the streets one day at a time. That had been Eddie’s goal from the moment he decided to be a journalist. And if that goal looked slightly different now that he shared it and a bond with his alien other, well, all the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a little light on the bloodshed this time. Sorry if that's not your jam. I just wanted to really look at some of Eddie's self-doubts in this one. He and Venom have been through a lot in this fic so far and it felt weird not to address it. Did that make for a weird tonal shift when Ant-Man shows up? Probably. But I did my best.
> 
> Also, it's probably pretty apparent that I have no real idea how to write Scott Lang. He probably came off as stiff and a bit out of character. It's been a little while since I watched the Ant-Man movies, but I'll be sure to brush up on them as soon as I am able. It goes without saying that any chapters that involve Ant-Man can now be considered tied together. I'm going to try not to completely turn this into a cross-over fic, but he's for sure going to come up every now and again. Maybe that means full chapters of interaction or just a passing line, we shall see.
> 
> The way I tried to time this fic places things roughly after the events of Ant-Man and The Wasp. I don't have plans to address Infinity War, and frankly, I don't want to. This is a fic about Venom and that will always take priority over any cameos from other marvel works.
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who continues to read this rambling fic of mine. I appreciate you all so much. I love Venom, but honestly, it's your support that keeps me going on this story when I get tired and frustrated with it. Thank you all! Let me know your thoughts, and if you guys have any suggestions, feel free to ask!


	9. Disembowelment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by Turbulent_Muse who suggested for a closer look at the 'disemboweling incident' mentioned in chapter 6. A note about the timeline here: this chapter precedes all the other chapters as it takes place almost immediately after the events of the movie. 
> 
>  
> 
> *CW: Please take note that this chapter contains graphic descriptions of a non-consensual surgical procedure used as torture. I tried to keep my writing abstract and more or less clinical in nature (rather than gratuitously gory), but some readers will find this chapter difficult to read. Please use your best discretion.

Perhaps it was naïve of him, but Eddie had hoped that the addition of Venom into his life wouldn’t change things too drastically.

 

That wasn’t to say that he didn’t understand that the fundamental nature of sharing a physical body with the void incarnate and toothy would come with new and exciting challenges, but rather, that everything else might get back on track.

 

During the couple of weeks after the rocket explosion in which it seemed that Venom had sacrificed their life for him, Eddie felt numb and listless. He would go through the motions of existence without any awareness or connection, untethered in a way that left him lost and lonely. A surreal burgeoning lassitude ate at him from the inside out. The only thing he remembered feeling distinctly was a sense of agoraphobia within his own body; almost like Venom had made a physical space of their own inside him, and in their absence he was left hollow, like an exoskeleton that had grown too small and was subsequently shed.

 

He’d felt awkward and confused when he’d finally expressed these pent-up introspections to Anne. He made sure to pepper his confession liberally with self-deprecating humor to cover up just how deep the ache ran, but Anne could see through his façade with a discerning eye.

 

“You’re in mourning,” she’d said simply but with sympathy.

 

The thought, though by all accounts true, confused him. Would he mourn for weeks someone he’d known during the span of a few hectic days? Sure, those days had come with some intense emotional analysis, turmoil, and reconciliation in an intimate way that seemed only feasible in the confines of a shared headspace, but it had been a matter of days all the same. He’d loved Anne for so much longer, but the loss of her did not cut him nearly so deep. Sure, she was still alive, and therefore the loss was one of a relationship rather than death, but he couldn't help the feeling that he was supposed to hold the connection between his fellow humans in higher regard.

 

But still, the loss of Venom, someone who had seen Eddie at his very worse and decided that this was a person worth defending to the death, tore him up too acutely for the answer to be so black and white. Venom was in and out of his life in a violent flash, and Eddie felt all the worse for the absence.

 

A voice, one that sounded insidiously like his father’s, pointed out that here too was an instance in which, for all his best efforts, Eddie was the sole cause of his own isolation and failure. More often than not, he wondered wryly if that bit of intuition was right.

 

Whatever emotional autopsy he’d begun to spiral down was indefinitely suspended in light of the Symbiote’s reintroduction into his life. Evidently, they had passed the time in a semi-hibernative state, curled up in Eddie’s gut to gradually recover their strength. In this stasis, Venom hadn’t been actively conscious of their host’s languid grief, but they were nonetheless quick to reassure Eddie that they would never leave him again. Not by choice.

 

So Eddie forced any further nagging feelings of doubt and remorse from his mind, and bottled-up any of his uglier emotions into a compact little ball and lobbed it to the far reaches of his psyche where Venom wasn’t likely to go poking around. What mattered now was that he had his partner back. To remain stagnant was to risk dwelling on the matter, moving forward was his only recourse.

 

In the time since, Eddie had managed to regain a bit of his old journalistic prestige, if only slightly. The true reason behind the fall of the Life Foundation was heavily edited by investigating authorities, but what did manage come to light corroborated Eddie’s claims of unethical human experimentation. Perhaps, compared to harboring alien life forms, admitting to torturing people under the guise of research was an easier course of action. Regardless, Eddie was no longer blacklisted. Now, with job prospects being messaged to him on a much more frequent basis and Venom back in his life, things were starting to look better and better each day.

 

His reconnection with Anne had settled into a secure friendship that, he found upon reflection, he cherished wholeheartedly.

 

This had confused Venom, who, up until that point, had asserted that the two of them would undoubtedly rekindle Eddie’s old romance with his ex. It had taken a very long and awkward back-and-forth between Symbiote and host to make it absolutely clear that while Eddie might have lingering feelings for Anne, she was happier with Dan, and Eddie was more than happy to respect that.

 

“Besides,” he’d mumbled a bit sheepishly, face burning, “Why would I want anyone else when I’ve got you?”

 

He’d only had a brief few seconds to wallow in mortification at the boldness and stupidity he’d exhibited in hitting on an asexual amorphous alien before a very pleased visage surged up out of his torso and engaged his mouth (and throat) in an enthusiastic reenactment of their shared kiss in the woods. Theirs wasn’t a typical budding romance, but as Venom was quick to point out, nothing about the two of them was ‘typical’ and there was no shame in that.

 

That same acrid voice that plagued him in his solitude whispered that he was being manipulative; that he was endearing the one he tentatively called his other into loving him so that they wouldn’t realize just how much of a loser Eddie was and inevitably leave. He argued back that Venom had asserted that they wouldn’t leave without any prompting on Eddie’s part and that the Symbiote was already firmly aware of how much of a loser he was, (having stated as much shortly after introducing themself). Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was some lingering truth in those whispers. He felt guilty, like he was betraying some greater trust, in that a small part of him braced itself in advance just in case things did fall apart.

 

All told, life fell into a comfortable regular routine. Eddie was focusing on building his reputation back up by taking a step back from the camera and focusing in on his writing. Venom was pleased with this career choice as it opened up more opportunities for education into who constituted a ‘good guy’ and a ‘bad guy’ with the latter invariably ending up on the menu. At first, Eddie had discouraged the easy acceptance with which Venom adapted to this new set of rules, emphasizing that the ‘eating’ of bad guys part of their agreement had been granted with the modifier 'occasionally'.

 

Nuance, was not something that came easily to Venom, (or more likely the Symbiote was playing difficult in order to gain leeway), and because of this, there were still instances in which Eddie felt the need to distance the two of them in order to ensure the impulse control of his other didn’t fail in instances of spectacularly poor timing. He could tell that his assertion on the way to San Quentin that what he was about to do was a ‘me thing, not a we thing’ only made Venom more bitter about the whole experience. The two of them had had a very terse argument on the ride home that culminated in “No, we’re not going back to eat Cletus Kasady, even if the guy is the worst of the worst, because we’re not going to end up like him! That’s why!”

 

Afterward, Eddie felt a little guilty for snapping at his other. The Symbiote’s hackles had only really risen when the interview took a turn for the more threatening, but he couldn’t help but see it as Venom expressing a certain lack of faith in Eddie’s abilities to handle himself.

 

Needless to say, there was still a dissonance between the two of them that needed to be sorted through. Eddie understood that Venom’s immersion into Earth culture and dynamics was filtered through the lens of his own screwed up perceptions, so he really had no one to blame for these occasional moments of miscommunication but himself.

 

He’d always taken for granted that society operated in a predictable way, so explaining things to a literal alien was a challenge he’d found himself wholly unprepared for. Hopefully, Venom would continue to be patient with him as he explained everything from the foundations of society to why they weren’t allowed to break into Ghirardelli Square after hours to gorge themselves.

 

So when Eddie tentatively hoped that things would weave into a nice new definition of normal, he really just wanted to live in contentment with Venom, eating chocolate and the very very occasional lowlife scumbag, and continue to build back up his modest journalistic career, now with a focus on the written word. Nothing that would rock the boat too badly and bring unwanted attention to them.

 

As far as Eddie was concerned, the whole fiasco with Drake and Riot was a one-time necessity in order to save all life on planet Earth for the possibility of extensive annihilation. Now with the company under investigation and all but disbanded, whatever else happened to the Life Foundation was none of his concern. Given that there were no FBI agents knocking at his door, he assumed that any evidence linking him to the events of a month ago were either destroyed by paranoid employees or were too inconclusive to investigate. It was an overly optimistic hope, but with each passing day, it seemed more conclusively the case.

 

For all the hardships that Eddie and Venom had endured in their brief time together, it really did seem like happiness had finally found the pair. They had found a home in each other. It wasn’t perfect, nothing was, but they would move forward and make the most of what was wholly their own.

 

If only.

 

* * *

 

 

They were both exhausted by the time they made it back to the apartment. It was the inevitable downside of any long-term assignment Eddie undertook, but this case in particular sent him up the coast, running around the Pacific Northwest for a week on a wild goose chase of a story that fizzled out into a resolution with lackluster results.

 

His editor was less than pleased by the outcome, even though the whole operation had been his call, based on an anonymous tip-off. And to think, the guy had once had the nerve to berate Eddie over the credibility of  _his_ sources. In the end, it hardly mattered. Eddie knew that this kind of grunt work was all apart of building back up his good grace. Something about him being a team player rather than running off like a wrecking ball, never mind that the kind of journalism that actually changed the world never bothered with arbitrary rules.

 

Now Eddie was tired and sore from mind-numbingly boring sleepless stakeouts and hours of nearly nonstop travel home. Frustration and disappointment gave in to a bone-deep weariness, melancholy, and a less than flattering weeks worth of beard growth. There was nothing he and Venom longed for more in the final leg of their journey than the anticipation of washing off the grime of the road and inducing a food coma from whatever surviving leftovers were still palatable in the fridge and the heaping bag of Chinese take-out boxes balanced precariously between an overstuffed duffle bag and the uncoordinated fumble for keys.

 

A tendril shot for his shoulder and saved the flailing keys from dropping to the ground and proceeded to unlock the apartment door with a deft motion that Eddie always had trouble replicating since the shitty bolt had a tendency to snag.

 

“Thanks, Babe” he mumbled with exhausted gratitude, to which he was presented with an equally exhausted nudge of endearment along the wash of his amygdala.

 

That had been the scope of their communication for the last twelve or so hours. The push to get home had been such that there had been little rest outside of the occasional roadside rest stop, mostly to refuel on vending machine junk food and to facilitate necessary bathroom breaks. The stiffness and circulation issues that came from riding the motorcycle for hours on end were mostly mitigated by Venom, but at the cost of the Symbiote’s own reserves, thus leading to a companionable lethargic silence between them in the interest of conserving mutual energy.

 

That was why it drenched Eddie in adrenaline-fueled dread when a half second before his forward momentum swung open his apartment door Venom stressed with an edge of panic:

 

**_Something’s wrong._ **

 

It was too late to draw back. As soon as the apartment door arced open an ear-splitting shriek of an alarm hit them like a physical force.

 

It emanated from within their apartment and the hallway surrounding them and they drop to the hard floor with thrashing uncontrollable impulses. Even if the convulsing agony breaking them to pieces—like the fracturing of bone at the impact of a bat—could be eased—the scream of sirens lighting up the connections between host and Symbiote physiology like a livewire—there was nowhere to run that the sound couldn’t reach. Eddie had seconds to register the vague impression that he felt like glass was being hammered directly into his hemorrhaging synapse before everything went dark.

 

* * *

 

 

His abrupt lurch into wakefulness is brought about with a literal slap to the face.

 

At once, everything is too bright and a pounding ache between his temples fluctuates between acute and numb with the beat of his heart. He releases a groan with the attempt to ease the pressure of a head that felt entirely too much like one big blister. The noise from his lips trails off and combines with a ringing frequency that cuts the air from elsewhere.

 

“You awake there, Eddie?”

 

There was someone—several someones—leaning over him, looking down on him. The half silhouette of the harsh light muddled his ability to identify who had spoken. But upon a drawn-out moment of vague mental fishing, he was certain that he knew none of these people.

 

“You must have really hit your head hard if you’re taking all this in stride. Either that, or I just never gave you enough credit for holding your nerve.”

 

Eddie wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it sounded rather disingenuous. Wherever he was, going from experience, he surmised that one, he was in some serious trouble, and two, this guy had vested interest in being a prick about it. If someone could turn off that irritating dentist drill of a noise for one second, he might actually be able to properly compose some words.

 

Instead, he squints and lets out an inarticulate, “Wha—?”

 

The man makes a noise of agitation and says something to the people milling about. They leave and the man grabs the light fixture above Eddie, a move that reminds him nebulously of something from an operating theater, lessening the harsh brightness to something more manageable.

 

“I gotta ask, Eddie, did you ever for one second think that you’d gotten away scot-free when you wrecked the Life Foundation?”

 

Eddie was gaining momentum toward lucidity and wanted to comment that he was flattered that his role in bringing down Drake was so aggrandized in this man’s eyes, but instead he mumbled with all the finesse of a mouthful of marbles, “It wasn’t all like that?”

 

“Yeah? It wasn’t, huh? And what about the people you and your pet tapeworm worm killed? Things could have been dealt with quietly, but then you had to go and blow up a fucking rocket in the middle of San Francisco Bay!”

 

Eddie was halfway to spitting out some other half-formed retort (about how it was Drake’s need to over-compensate that put that rocket launch pad in the bay, not him thank you very much), when a flash of cold swept from his limbs and through his core like a creeping frost.

 

Venom. He couldn’t feel them. They weren’t there.

 

He must have started hyperventilating because he suddenly couldn’t pull in enough oxygen. He tries to pitch upright but only then notices that he’s being restrained to a table of sorts.

 

His mind unconsciously takes in the details around him—the smell of antiseptic, trays of glinting tools, the drape of plastic over sterile surfaces—and informs him that he is in fact in some sort of fucked up makeshift surgical suite. This heightens the dizzying rush of anxiety that asphyxiates his throat and sours his stomach.

 

Where was he and where was Venom?

 

He loosely recalls the trap that had been sprung at his apartment. Had the noise attack hurt the Symbiote fatally? Had they escaped only to limp along, exposed to the open toxic atmosphere, only to shrivel up and die somewhere that they would be mistaken for a dull bit of trash or an oil spill? Did they find a new host? Could that mean they were looking for Eddie, or did they cut their losses and resolve to start over…with someone else?

 

All the spiraling raw emotions that had tormented him during the time after the rocket crash, when all signs pointed to his other’s destruction, broke from their quelled state and latched anew onto his pitching mind. But this was different, this was worse. Back then Venom had only been resting and waiting out the worst of their wounds, a state of which Eddie had since learned to recognize the signs of; a specter of weight at the dip between the thoracic and lumbar curve of his spine, the slight tick in his diaphragm as his other stretched tendrils about his ribs to assure themself of their host’s beating heart and contracting lungs, like resting wings drawn close for comfort.

 

If he had felt empty then, even with the various minute signs of Venom’s presence, now there was nothing but a void.

 

There’s no way the man before him was oblivious enough to not notice the sudden panic that arrested Eddie, but regardless, he continues his spiel with hardly a change in inflection.

 

“Did you ever even wonder why it was that nobody asked questions about your involvement with Drake, Eddie? Did you really think that all the evidence, research files, and video footage the Life Foundation had on you and the specimen just disappeared on its own? No, I can assure you that that research lives on in the ambition of many interested parties.”

 

It had occurred to Eddie that it was awfully convenient that everything played out the way it had; Drake and Riot permanently out of the picture, the unethical experiments in the Life Foundation brought to a grinding halt, and he and Venom able to go about their lives, free from any prevailing suspicion. It made sense that the research that Drake founded wouldn’t just stop. If any scientists involved were already willing to involve themselves in inhuman practices, that wouldn’t end just because their source of funds and facility changed. Ostensibly, those reports of wrongful deaths came well in advance of the rocket crash that brought the Symbiotes to Earth. He wanted to ask, to confirm in at least some small way that all his conjecture was as true as it was shaping up to be, but the prevailing crush of dread that gripped him left him too sick to speak.

 

Which hardly stopped his captor from continuing.

 

“That brings us back to the here and now,” with a sickening amount of flourish, the man reaches down under the table and lifts some sort of metal container up onto the table next to Eddie’s head. With a button presses the curve of glass affixed to the front slides back with a _snick_ that causes him to flinch minutely.

 

“Here’s how this is going to go. Give us the specimen back and I’ll consider letting you walk out of here more or less in one piece.”

 

Confusion temporarily breaks through the panic. They wanted Venom, but for all the apparent effort they put into subduing and abducting Eddie, they had no idea that Venom was no longer inside him. They knew enough to use sound as a weapon against the Symbiote, but they were either ignorant or careless to the fact that high frequencies had a potentially deadly effect.

 

There was no telling how disposable he’d be considered once it became apparent that Venom was absent.

 

“And if I say no?” he hedged after a pause.

 

“If you refuse, then I’ll rip it out of you anyway, and you won’t survive that,” and here the man stands and wheels the tray of bladed instruments closer, clearly to catch Eddie’s eye. “Whether or not you can forcefully eject the specimen on your own is a bit of a question that my associates and I are curious about. The fact of the matter is that either way, we will leave with what we want, it’s just a matter of doing this the easy way or the hard way.”

 

Well, shit. There were no two ways about it; Eddie was going to die here, probably painfully, and with nothing to show for his life but a mountain of unresolved regrets.

 

Better to show his hand now and hope for the best.

 

“Well, I have some bad news for you buddy, the Symbiote is gone.”

 

The man’s face creases the slightest bit with tension. “What?”

 

“Yeah, you fucked this one right up even before you dragged my unconscious body here. That noise trap? That sent them fleeing to, well, who knows where at this point. So that stupid frequency you have going off in this room, yeah, that's not doing anything other than giving me a worse headache.” That’s what he surmised anyway; that the shrill noise emanating about them was some kind of ill-conceived precaution to subdue the Symbiote. And judging the scowl facing him down, he’d hit home.

 

“Nice try though, you had the right idea but the wrong execution.” He made sure to tack on a lilt to his words coupled with a smile too confident for the anxiety gnawing at his stuttering airways, causing him to speak just a bit too quickly. “Guess you can let me go now, huh?”

 

“The hard way it is then.”

 

“No! Weren’t you listening to a word I said? Turn up your shitty little noise maker, you’ll see that it doesn’t do shit! Don’t you have some kind of x-ray in this budget horror movie basement? There’s no alien in my guts! You fucking _killed them!_ ”

 

He wondered briefly if he, himself, believed those words, but in the end, decided that it was a pointless distinction. If he was going to die here, it was a lot easier to think of Venom as definitively dead rather than consider the ambiguity of the alternative. Maybe if he repeated that line enough before the end he could convince himself and his captor that it was the truth, and things could end now with him.

 

There was an instinct in Eddie, an unconscious one, that too often stared intently into the darkness, said “fuck it”, and compelled him to dive headfirst into the deep. It was the same instinct that drove him to mouth-off at people like Drake and Treece, to stand defiant against a number of armed opponents; mobsters, thugs, crime lords, and people with power, wealth, and little tolerance for snarky journalists. It was the same voice that told him that calling Riot ugly to their face was an excellent idea, and that to die trying to stop them was a worthy way to go.

 

That instinct made him feel every so slightly more in control of chaotic circumstances. Because mocking death out of a sick fondness held some kind of weight, and (as was the case in this instance) self-preservation was for those who had something to preserve.

 

So it was with all this running shallowly through Eddie’s mind, watching with a kind of numbness as the man before him made short work of paring and removing his travel-worn shirt with scissors to expose his naked chest that called upon him to idiotically blurt, “you know, normally I don’t let people see this side of me until at least the second or third date.”

 

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy picking that parasite out of your guts.”

 

“What makes you think they’d even hang out in my stomach just waiting around for you to pull them out? I have other body parts they could move to.” He wanted to kick himself for letting his mouth run ahead of him again. Why was he giving the guy ideas?

 

“If they’re not in a centralized location, well, blood loss due to disembowelment usually results in death fairly quickly. Even if the Symbiote evades this procedure, they can’t survive a dead host.” All this was punctuated with the snap of latex gloves being donned.

 

“Do I get any anesthesia out of this? I don’t think you’re going to enjoy the dulcet tones of my screaming while you make mincemeat out of me.”

 

“For you, Mr. Brock, we’re unfortunately fresh out.”

 

“Now that’s just rude,” he said with a voice that expressed exasperation to hide the way he broke out in a full body sweat. He was surprised his heart wasn’t hammering out of his chest by this point. Maybe, if he was lucky, the stress would kill him first.

 

Rather than dignify that last comment with a response, the man selected a nauseatingly large scalpel from his tray of instruments, poised the blade along the sagittal plane of Eddie’s abdomen, added wryly, “now try not to move too much,” before pressing down and _in_.

 

Even as he flinched back and started spilling a litany of curses, at first Eddie didn’t feel anything. There was the pressure of indentation, sure, but little other indication that anything sinister was occurring, the blade apparently so fine that it was not immediately undetectable, and that scared him all the more. He was positioned on the table in such a way that he could see the end of the scalpel and the hand that held it, but not what was happening beneath the blade. It was simultaneously a blessing and a terror.

 

Then, as the cut widened and nerve endings caught up to the surrounding severance, a sensation not unlike that of a cat scratch began to register, before blooming into tangible pain.

 

“FUCK, _fucking!_ Stop, please!” Ignoring the warning not to move, he thrashed in any way the limited mobility of his restraints allowed. All bravado had degenerated into full-blown panic as the reality of his situation caught up to him completely.

 

He had died once by Riot’s blade, but the fissure of the spine, bisected in one clean motion, left him with the barest glimpse of a sensation, neither pain or else something more benign, before darkness enfolded him. For all that he believed his torturer that blood loss would see him away quick enough, this was hell in comparison to a Symbiot's tender mercies.

 

“Please stop, please—don’t do this! Venom—! Venom’s not in me!” Despite his jerking, the beating of his limbs against the tiny give between the metal table and open air, the man above him remained silent and steady. There was no way the cut was clean at this point but that mattered little when there was no obligation for the incision to be sutured.

 

Warm blood pooled over the dip of his abdomen and down either side of his waist where a puddle began to form and coagulate with his sweat to stick along the flexing arching of his back.

 

The man pulled back briefly to admire and dab away the blood from the cut that Eddie couldn’t see but nebulously felt ran from just below the ribs to just above his umbilical. It felt deep. Eddie hadn’t taken a biology class in years but he knew logically that layers of skin, fat, and muscle would need to be severed in order for the organs to be laid bare.

 

A thin groan slips through clenched teeth, drawing the man’s attention back to Eddie’s face.

 

“You’re not looking too good, Eddie. Need anything? A break? Some water?”

 

“ _Fuck you_ —“

 

“I guess that’s a no.”

 

“Do you seriously get your rocks off on this shit? Torturing people? _Jesus_ , day-to-day life must be unbearable for you.”

 

That got him a glower. It was nice to know that he could make the sick bastard feel something in return.

 

“You’re hardly one to talk with that parasite of yours. You killed a lot of good people and ruined the lives of many others. Plus, you haven’t been exactly subtle in your feeding habits around the city.”

 

“Hey, that was community service as far as I’m concerned, and I’m willing to bet that my death toll is smaller than yours by a long shot!”

 

Eddie wondered vaguely if it was the adrenaline or the steady release of endorphins that were slowly hijacking his higher brain functions (coupled with that aforementioned dark instinct) that persuaded him to prod at his captor’s every nerve. Who knew? At this point, Eddie was creepy back around to the side of snide belligerence.

 

“You know,” he tried for conversational, but the words came out too breathy, “I’m kinda glad my body will probably never be found after all this is said and done. It would be kind of embarrassing for the coroner to try and ID me after you’ve turned me into ground beef.”

 

With a motion that was far too violent to be purely clinical, the man thrust the scalpel back into the flayed layers of skin and muscle along his blood-drenched abdomen and _twisted_ the instrument down between soft tissues. Over Eddie’s anguished wails he spate, “Do you enjoy pain, Eddie? Is that why you’re continuing to _piss me off?_ ”

 

His response only came after agonizing minutes of half-sobs and hyperventilation. Even so, his answering, “No, but _like hell_ am I going to make this any _easier_ for you!” was pitched from his mouth like a sluggish trail of saliva.

 

It carried on much the same for the following agonizing minutes-turned-years that assaulted Eddie’s body and mind like the lethal embrace of an iron maiden. At some point, the metallic stench of blood had become overpowering and he dipped in and out of consciousness between soft curses from his torturer. His would-be surgeon seemed to grow more frustrated as time went on, evidently not finding what he was looking for.

 

Eddie had to fight his gorge from rising at the sight of the man’s blood cakes gloves and forearms and the vague wet noises of meat that he could make out over the sound of the ever-present ringing pitch.

 

He really hated that noise; the one that would remind him of Venom’s absence up until his last moments. It would be a testament to a lonely end, spread out on an operating table, with no witnesses other than a man long since indifferent to death.

 

Perhaps this was a little of how Venom felt; their atoms dissipating under the agonizing assault of the open air and deadly frequencies, their host indifferently slumped in a stupor when they needed him most.

 

“Where is it?” The clang of metal denoted the man throwing his blade aside in visible frustration, only to turn and advance on Eddie, grasping his chin with a slippery grip and repeat, “Where the fuck _is it?_ ”

 

Let it be known that even at the edge of death, Eddie Brock would never let slip the chance to run his mouth off, so saying, “oh damn, did this piñata not come with any candy?”

 

It was probably the worst zinger he’d attempted in his short, regretful life, but at the moment he was so proud of it, he would have asked for the words to be engraved on his epitaph.

 

The man’s responding rage, manifest in the wrapping of hands around Eddie’s throat (apparently he just wasn’t dying fast enough), when a curious thing happened; all the lights shorted out and the splitting ache of the alarm cut off.

 

The grip around his neck withdrew in favor of the unseen motion of the man's fumbling movements about the room to investigate the disturbance. The _clang_ of the tray of scalpels falling to the floor and sharp expletives were deafening in the sudden stillness.

 

All things considered, Eddie didn’t mind or question anything. This new darkness complemented the one behind his eyelids comfortably enough, and he was unsure if that was what caused him to miss the majority of what happened next.

 

One moment he’s conscious of hearing the telltale sound of the room’s door opening, before outraged words were thrown about. Next, came panicked yells. But even those he processed sluggishly between nodding off, like trying to puzzle out a scene through slow-motion strobe lighting.

 

Lastly, it was an inhuman roar punctuated by a terror-stricken scream before the _crunch_ of bone and the wet mastication of flesh was heard.

 

* * *

 

 

**_Eddie._ **

 

He’s not sure how long he’d been in a state slipping in and out of consciousness, but he was aware that the pain was gone, replaced by the numbness of an unnaturally accelerated healing factor that had become an endless source of comfort and wonder.

 

“V?”

 

**_Here now Eddie._ **

 

“Where were you, V?”

 

That was selfish of him, but after all that he had just been through, Eddie was feeling a whole lot of selfish.

 

In the very next moment, he was overwhelmed with the knowledge that Venom was alive. That it was Eddie, _himself_ , that had been the useless one that needed rescuing. That _he’d_ given up on Venom as a lost cause, _all over again_.

 

Before he knew it, his entire body is rattling with sobs that only grow louder as the wholeness of his being is reaffirmed. Venom found him, saved him, healed him, and was now comforting him; their mass encircling Eddie, massaging phantom pains from his stressed organs and muscles whilst licking his skin clean of the mess of gore that painted him in abstract ways.

 

He makes several attempts at conquering his frayed emotions to speak aloud, but each time he is drawn back under with new grief.

 

**_Take your time, Eddie. Allow yourself to express your pain and sadness. It is your body’s way of releasing stress and your mind’s way of processing trauma. I will be here for you…though I couldn’t before._ **

 

It was that last bit of remorse expressed by his other that broke Eddie’s heart the most. For what felt like hours he poured his misery into tear-streaked and mucus stained lamentations of _it’s not your fault_ — _I’m so sorry—don’t leave me, please—I don’t deserve you—forgive me—I love you._

 

It was after a time that he was able to stand up and shakily make his way about the pitch-black room with the help of Venom’s anxious guidance.

 

He stopped and got comfortable in a chair as spots clouded his senses with the disorientation of blood loss. Venom took that time to explain their escapades apart from Eddie while they gorged on the remains of Eddie’s torturer and the unfortunate lab assistant that had served as Venom’s temporary ride.

 

All told, it was a much less exciting tale than Eddie would have guessed. Upon fleeing Eddie, Venom had sought out Eddie’s obnoxious neighbor to ‘borrow’ his body and thus huddle down somewhere more quiet until the sirens stopped so that they could follow the nondescript van with which Eddie was being spirited away without notice.

 

This plan hit a snag when said neighbor was absent, forcing Venom to travel in the open air further, through a crack in a windowpane, to pounce upon an unsuspecting ally cat. The cat proved a poor host in trailing the van, as Venom was only able to go one block before the target was gone from sight. Frustrated, they utilized the instincts that cats were best suited for and brought down a rather bedraggled pigeon before hopping hosts again.

 

Venom remarked fondly between mouthfuls of corpse that the pigeon had been their favorite because, between its dirty, beruffled, patchy plumage and the evidence that it subsisted mostly on hollow carbohydrates, it sorely reminded them of Eddie. They made sure to share some of the nutrition they obtained through consuming the cat with the stalwart little avian.

 

However, even with the advantage of wings, it had taken considerable time to hone in on the vestiges of the bond they shared with Eddie. There was a lot of flying in circles, crashing into random tenements, and terrorizing of passersby by swooping low. But eventually they knew they were in the right place; a small shed that, for all its innocuousness exterior, they could sense the winding basement structure that delved deep underneath. From there it was simple to land (careful to release their feathered host back into the world, better off for their brief acquaintance), and subsume one of the lookouts smoking leisurely about the entrance.

 

From there, they only attempted subtly up until they located the basement's breaker box, with the help of their human ride’s memory, and destroyed the panel. It was pathetically easy to navigate the halls in the dark and take out any threat along the way. The pungent smell of Eddie’s blood terrified and frenzied their violent massacre through the basement until they located their beloved host; deathly pale in contrast to the saturation of blood that wept in rivulets from a vivisected gap of nesting organs.

 

**Feared it was too late.**

 

Their slit-sickle eyes, lit by a bioluminescent glow, that were just visible in the dark, narrowed in remorse for what almost was; for what they fearing in the seconds between viciously tearing through the trunk of the one responsible for the horrors inflicted upon Eddie and the desperate joining their essences.

 

Eddie was tired, worn ragged by all that had transpired in the last hour or so, clinging to life despite his firm belief that he would never escape alive. Venom was tired, drained physically and emotionally by their hopeless search for their very vulnerable host, knowing that every second could be Eddie’s last and all the while knowing that it was because of them that Eddie had been targeted at all.

 

They both grew solemn once again and embraced, joining together in a sorely missed mix of cells and biomass, both alien to the other but wholly united and yearning in their cherishment. They silently reveled in their joint synthesis as they make they’re way back out of the darkness and up to the surface.

 

The Symbiote couldn’t shed tears; they had no biological physical equivalent to the human expression of sorrow. The best they could produce were noises, the most audible of which they saved for extreme cases of anguish and mourning; noises they would have expressed if Eddie had truly been long gone past the point of return.

 

Instead, tiny vibrations like the keening that had slipped past Eddie’s lips traveled back and forth between Symbiote and host in bittersweet resonance as tears welled past Eddie’s own eyes. This time though, their emotions were of profound relief for the near miss and second chance they’d both received.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost, I want to thank you all for being incredibly patient with me while I took some time off to finish up the school semester and other pressing irl issues. That said, this chapter evaded my every attempt to write it for a ridiculously long time. I am not exaggerating when I say that I wrote, re-wrote, edited, and ripped chunks out of this narrative with my own blood, sweat, and tear encrusted hands, in major ways, no less than six times. I'm still not absolutely satisfied with this final draft, but I felt like I've given my readers the inadvertent cold-shoulder for too long. If there are any outstanding issues, please let me know, I try to be vigilant but my brain typically shorts out around 3,000 words.
> 
> I hope there still some of you left that weren't chased away by my extended absence! Please let me know your thoughts, and if you want to suggest a topic, I'm always game! Thank you all, and happy reading.


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